Time Out No. #62 | Tuesday 18 January 2022

What makes London great (apart from you, of course)? We think it’s the huge wealth of independent businesses and venues. So, every year, we hold our Love Local Awards to celebrate them. We can now reveal the winners of 2021’s awards: the London restaurants, pubs, cafés, venues and shops that YOU nominated, and YOU voted for (more than 100,000 times). We were kind of overwhelmed – momentarily – by the response, but clearly a lot of you feel the same way we do.

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We speak to artist Yinka Ilori, give out the gongs with our Love Local Awards and offer you the chance to win an upmarket dinner for two at a posh eatery with our magazine survey. 

Three films to see at the cinema in January

Phil DeSemlyen

Global Film editor

@PhildeSemlyen

If you grew up thinking that the English-sounding Sir Kenneth Branagh must have grown up somewhere with the words ‘upon-Avon’ in its name, ‘Belfast’ is here to set you straight. The thesp filmmaker has dug into his memory banks to touchingly retell the story of a childhood during The Troubles. Much more uplifting than a film set in a warzone has any right to be, it’s a spirit-enhancing tonic that’s full of Van Morrison tunes (if you’re into that kind of thing) and co-stars Judi Dench. 

If you enjoyed ace migrant horror ‘His House’ on Netflix, give this supernatural spin on historic trauma set in a condemned London house a whirl – it’s the next in a subgenre I’m calling ‘Rightmove horror’. This one has even more to offer gorehounds, as actress-turned-director Romola Garai lays on accursed plasterwork, demonic bats in the bathroom and something truly heinous in the loft.

Pedro Almodóvar is back with another slice of oro frito in the shape of this loudly acclaimed melodrama of motherhood that digs into Spain’s dark recent past. It all comes wrapped in the Spanish auteur’s usual high style – other filmmakers try to blow your mind with massive CG explosions, Almodóvar just uses wallpaper – and has a Penélope Cruz performance that, in any just world, will result in a multitude of awards.

London for less

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You know you deserve it. You can feel the knots in your back, the bags around your eyes, the relentless schedule and the fatigue it brings. Enough, let’s chill the yes out. But where to start? Ah, well, we have curated a list of ways to get some high-quality rest time with AIRE, who know a thing or two about premium wellness.

Is it a parody of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s arch sex-comedy smash ‘Fleabag’? Is it a person in the throes of a very twenty-first-century meta media crisis live on stage? Whatever, Liz Kingsman’s One-Woman Show’ is a riotously funny mix of knowingness and knowing nothing, and – as our Theatre editor says – ‘probably the single hottest ticket in the capital right now’. You have been warned.

‘These profiteroles are sweating profusely.’

Overheard something weird and wonderful? Tweet us and you might see it next time!

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Quite possibly – and it’s in south London, no less

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Quick bites

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