One hundred and six things (part one)

A cultural review of 2024

Largely by accident, by way of Google Calendar, I have a record of almost all the gigs, plays, exhibitions and (some of the) restaurants I’ve been to in the last 20 years. I didn’t think much about it until reading this bizarre news release last year in which it turned out that nobody had bothered to claim the Guinness record for “most gigs attended in a year” until a young American man did so, with the remarkably low number of 86. I thought I’d probably done more than that in some years - I counted 44 between July and December 2006.

That led me to a thought that it would be interesting specifically to note down everything cultural I did in 2024. So here we are. The totals were:

• 18 art exhibitions

• 14 museums

• 28 plays and musicals

• 20 gigs or concerts

• 26 others, including talks, walks, comedy, major sporting events and one particularly interesting restaurant

And here are three highlights - the other three will follow next week:

1. 🎭Most memorable theatre

I saw a lot this year, not particularly through effort to seek out good stuff, but simply because (perhaps this is a post-covid dividend) there seemed to be an enormous amount of inventive new theatre in London this year. Ulster American was cartoonish and entertainingly violent, while the new Jez Butterworth play, The Hills of California, was beautiful, if slighter than Jerusalem or The Ferryman. The Patrick Marber-directed Nachtland was perhaps trying too hard, while Standing at the Sky’s Edge was fun, if less memorable tune-wise than I’d hoped for from a Richard Hawley-scored musical. Passing Strange was less than the sum of its parts, sadly, while Farm Hall was engrossing but ultimately a little disappointing, and Harry Clarke, the one-man Billy Crudup show, was almost the most memorable, simply because of Crudup’s stage presence.

But probably the most memorable show was the revived Death of England trilogy, a pair of 90-minute one-man shows followed by a slightly longer two-hander. Paapa Essiedu and Thomas Coombes were electrifying as Delroy and Michael respectively, two friends each telling their own (and one another’s) stories. Coombes had the better script, and Erin Doherty and Sharon Duncan-Brewster were let down a little by a much lighter script for their double act. But this was the show (alright, set of shows) that I’d see again without thinking.

The empty stage for Death of England: Michael, before the start of the performance

2. ^🍹Most well-crafted drinks

I almost called this “most well-crafted soft drinks” but then realised that would mean I couldn’t commend 🔶🟥🔵 A Bar with Shapes for a Name, one of many London entries on most “best bars in the world” list, where the cocktails are endlessly inventive and the service is top-notch.

this was, I think, a lychee martini, at Shapes

But my most memorable drinks were softs, at the twelve-seater Aulis in Soho, where my wife and I had dinner in February. We drove, so we both went for the soft drinks pairings, a set menu of drinks to accompany each course, and it was the highlight of the evening. I can remember almost none of them, ten months later, except for one that the maître d'/sommelier/barman (there are only four staff on site so everyone does a bit of everything) had lovingly crafted from pressed raspberry twigs. The whole thing was delightful.

two of the dishes, two of the drinks and one of my wife Kate at Aulis

3. 🛣️Longest journey (and most fun art)

child waiting for Glasgow subway train

In January my son and I set out on a small adventure, heading to a wintry Glasgow by rail for a few days, on a mission to see my cousin Ramesh’s art exhibition, Idols of Mud and Water, at Glasgow’s Tramshed gallery.

Images from Idols of Mud and Water, from Glasgow University's Cloisters, and from the railway journey

The exhibition was immense, and immensely enjoyable, not least because it’s Ramesh’s first showing in the UK.

To be continued next week…