Union Jacks daub Regent Street in the West End in honour of the wedding in Windsor last weekend of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, now the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. PICTURE: Pete (licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0/image cropped)
The final days of Anne Boleyn are being brought to life in a new play running at the Tower of London. Written and directed by Michael Fentiman, The Last Days of Anne Boleyn tells the story of the last 17 days of the Queen’s life before her execution in 1536 following her spectacular fall from grace. The performance is staged on the site of the lost Tudor palace at the Tower where Anne spent her final days and is based on contemporary sources including letters to her husband, King Henry VIII, and her final speech on the scaffold in the moments before she was beheaded. The outdoor show (suitable for all ages) runs for 35 minutes with two performances a day – 11am and 2pm, from Friday to Tuesday until 28th August (weather permitting). Admission is included in the entry price. For more information, head here. PICTURES: Courtesy of Historic Royal Palaces.
LondonLife – Night shopping…
May 8, 2018
PICTURE: Pete Owen/Unsplash
LondonLife – Still waters at Hampstead Heath…
April 17, 2018
PICTURE: Amadeusz Misiak/Unsplash.
LondonLife – Trafalgar Square…
April 10, 2018
PICTURE: Kevin Grieve/Unsplash
LondonLife – Crenellations…
March 27, 2018
Tower of London crenellations from Tower Hill.
LondonLife – Cold days…
March 20, 2018
PICTURE: Jack Finnigan/Unsplash
LondonLife – Inner Temple…
March 13, 2018
Hare Court, part of Inner Temple – one of the four Inns of Court in London. The inns of Court are professional associations for barristers – the Inner Temple, like the Middle Temple, has provided accommodation for lawyers since at least the 14th century.
LondonLife – Cannons in snow…
March 6, 2018
Cannons in snow at the Tower of London.
LondonLife – Sunrise over the City…
February 20, 2018
PICTURE: David Holt (licensed under CC BY 2.0)
LondonLife – Taking stock at the ZSL London Zoo…
February 13, 2018
Last week was the ZSL London Zoo’s annual stocktake in which they make a count of all the creatures, great and small, that are residents of the zoo. Some 750 species live at the zoo totalling more than 19,000 animals, meaning it’s quite a mammoth effort which takes almost a week to complete. The information gained is then shared with other zoos around the world via the Species360 database to aid in managing worldwide conservation breeding programmes for endangered animals. While some animals, like the Asiatic lions are easy to count, others are less so due to their tiny size (although ant colonies are simply counted as one). Among first-timers this year were two gibbons – Jimmy and Yoda – as well as 11 Humboldt penguin chicks, eight new Galapagos tortoises and a Hanuman langur baby (a species of leaf-eating monkey). For more on the zoo, see www.zsl.org. PICTURES: Top – Humboldt penguins; Below – Squirrel monkeys, llamas and an Asiatic lion.
LondonLife – Curved facades…
February 6, 2018
PICTURE: Ed Robertson/Unsplash
LondonLife – New Elizabeth line roundels installed…
January 30, 2018
PICTURES: Courtesy of Crossrail: top – Monica Wells; below – James O Jenkins.
LondonLife – Lights at Piccadilly…
January 23, 2018
PICTURE: Clem Onojeghuo/Unsplash
LondonLife – Alley flurries…
January 16, 2018
PICTURE: Clever Visuals/Unsplash
LondonLife – Dawn by The Shard…
January 9, 2018
PICTURE: Tom Coe/Unsplash
LondonLife – Welcome to 2018!
January 2, 2018
PICTURE: Kafai Liu/Unsplash
LondonLife – Christmas takes to central London streets…
December 19, 2017
Reflections at Trafalgar Square. PICTURE: Raphaël Chekroun (licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0).
Carnaby Street ‘Carnival’. PICTURE: Kevin Oliver (licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) (image cropped).
Flying high in the West End. PICTURE: Maureen Barlin (licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
Thrills at Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. PICTURE: Kevin Oliver (licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
Outside St Paul’s at Covent Garden. PICTURE: Kevin Oliver (licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
LondonLife – Snowfall at Kenwood House…
December 12, 2017
Snow at Kenwood House near Hampstead Heath. PICTURE: Ashley Coates (licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)
LondonLife – Christmas at Kew…
December 5, 2017
Be dazzled by more than a million twinkling lights at the enchanted wonderland that is Kew Gardens this Christmas.
The Royal Botanic Gardens in London’s west have once again teamed up with entertainment promoter Raymond Gubbay Ltd to create a brand new illuminated trail. It starts with a path lit by hundreds of illuminated globes winding through trees festooned with silvery shards of light, snowflakes and stars and includes attractions such as an enormous glowing ‘Sledge Tree’ – made from more than 360 wooden Santa sledges, and a chorus of ‘Singing Trees’.
Other artistic installations along the trail include an ultraviolet walkway of thousands of continuously moving bubbles (created by Between Art and Technology (BAT) Studio), an enchanted promenade of hundreds of huge glowing peonies, giant grasses and coloured reeds (the work of French art studio TILT), and a host of giant trees, made from thousands of colourful, sparkling flowers complete with holographic petals (creative studio PITAYA) located along the Great Broad Walk Borders (included in the trail for the first time).
The fire garden has also returned – this year as a corridor of intricate pulsing fire sculptures and rotating lantern-lit Christmas trees – as has the Palm House finale in which the pond and glasshouse spring to life in an explosion of laser beams, jumping jets of light and kaleidoscopic projections playing across a giant water screen.
And, of course, there’s roasted chestnuts, mulled cider and Santa and his elves as well as a festive fairground and other food and drink. Open between 5pm and 10pm (timed entries between 5pm and 7.40pm), the after dark event runs until 1st January. Admission charges apply. For more, see www.kew.org.
PICTURES: Above – A sea of illuminated globes by the Palm House / Below (top to bottom) – 1. Giant glowing trees along The Great Broad Walk Borders; 2. Animated illuminations at Kew’s lake; 3. Giant peonies; 4.Palm House Grand Finale. ALL PHOTOGRAPHY © Jeff Eden/RBG Kew.
