One hundred and six things (part two)

A cultural review of 2024, completed

I’m rounding off my cultural list from 2024, which began last week.

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

Here are the final three highlights from 2024:

4. 🎶Most highly-awaited gig

I interviewed Candidate more than 20 years ago in a pub in Camden, for PennyBlackMusic, a site with which I’m still involved. At the time they didn’t gig very much, and when they wound things down a few years after that interview I assumed my chance to see them had gone.

Candidate (sans drummer) at The Harrison

But then in 2023 new Candidate records began to appear, and then that November the band played a stripped-down set in a (surprisingly good) pizza/cocktail bar in Walthamstow. The band then put in a full appearance in September 2024 at The Harrison pub in the no-man’s land between Clerkenwell, Bloomsbury and King’s Cross. It was incredible.

Crowded House, Nilufer Yanya, Bat for Lashes, MJ Lenderman, Bonnie “Prince” Billy

Other memorable gigs in the gallery above are Crowded House and Nilufer Yanya at Pryzm in Kingston, Bat for Lashes at St John’s Church in Kingston (all of which were put on by the incredible Banquet Records), MJ Lenderman at the Garage in Highbury, Bonnie “Prince” Billy at Rough Trade in Shoreditch, and below - and only just second to Candidate in the highlight of the year, the incomparable Beth Gibbons doing a secret(ish) pre-tour warm-up show at the Charing Cross Theatre.

Beth Gibbons on stage at Charing Cross Theatre

5. 🤡Scariest clown

I’m still not totally sure what a “clown” is in the modern sense in which comedians use it, but it seems to involve lots of physical work, lots of audience work and - maybe - lots of costume/make-up work? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Mikey Bligh-Smith performing at This Machine Kills Wasps in February

In February I saw the excellent clown Mikey Bligh-Smith (pictured above as a clown cloud) at This Machine Kills Wasps, a regular night my friend James runs down in Brighton. You should go.

Later in the year, in November at Soho Theatre, I saw the clown Natalie Palamides do an excellent one-woman two-person show called Weer. I returned to Soho Theatre the following month for the best of the lot, the incredible Julia Masli (the aforementioned James booked her for one of his shows a couple of years ago, so he knows what he’s doing. You should go). Masli’s show combines clowning, comedy of embarrassment and group therapy in a way that sounds excruciating but which works exceptionally well.

No pictures during the show, obviously, but this was the stage for Julia Masli

6. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦Most entertaining kids’ show

My son is now 10 which means he has started coming to things that I might do alone or that my wife and I would have done ourselves. He enjoyed Hadestown and was pretty caught up in the story and the songs.

We saw Bubble Man Louis Pearl at a local theatre who was good, but the highlight of 2024 was Ministry of Science which tours regularly but which we saw at the glorious Richmond Theatre back in January. In addition to putting in an enormous amount of hard work, MoS managed to thrill an audience of very mixed ages, with experiments and gags that entertained five-year-olds as much as ten-year-olds. Thoroughly recommended, should you be in the market for such things.

Ministry of Science at Richmond Theatre

Onwards, then, into 2025, kicking off with the historically unlikely double act of Franz Ferdinand and Doctor Strangelove. What were your cultural highlights of 2024 and what are you looking forward to in 2025?