Why I'm falling for East 17
We seem to have chosen just the right moment to move to Walthamstow. The week before we got the keys to our new flat at the end of August last year, the area's only cinema – closed since the previous summer – reopened under new ownership. Next, in March, the Times named E17 the best place to live in London. Getting 'Stay Another Day' stuck in my head every time I write my postcode seems a fair price to pay for such heights. Then, last Friday, the new outpost of Soho Theatre, the confusingly named Soho Theatre Walthamstow, opened. It's not often that a PR invite lands in my inbox that I actually want to say yes to, but a long-anticipated opening night a ten-minute walk from my flat? It was an easy yes.
The site has been a cultural landmark since 1887, when a Victorian music hall opened there. The building that now exists opened in 1929 as a cinema, and was often frequented by Alfred Hitchcock, who was born in the borough (though too late, sadly, for William Morris, our other famous alumnus). Later, it operated as a music venue, hosting the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling Stones and Buddy Holly. In 2003 the building was bought by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, but they were unable to get planning permission, and it fell into disrepair. Various groups campaigned for it to be restored and reopened as an arts venue, and in 2018 the council acquired it and announced that Soho Theatre would operate it.
We missed all these years of hard work by local activists, swanning in at the last-minute for the rewarding part. But still, seeing the buzz on the street on opening night, I felt pride for my little corner of London. For our first six months of living in the area, the theatre was boarded up and, save for the odd glimpse through a door left open by a workman, we had no idea what lay behind. As it turns out, what lay behind was an opulent baroque theatre, which, at 1,000 seats, proffers a new sort of comedy venue for the capital: far bigger than Soho Theatre's Dean Street home, but far smaller the Hammersmith Apollo.
The opening-night show, Weer by the LA comedian Natalie Palamides, is a piss-take of Nineties comedies, in which Palamides plays both on-off lovers over the course of their three-year relationship. When her right-hand side faces the audience she is Mark, with a plaid shirt and a brooooooo-ish drawl; her left is Christina, in alarmingly low-rise jeans and a G-string pulled up to her waist. It's an extraordinary feat of physical comedy; Palamides, at various points, runs into herself, snogs herself, tries to revive herself after a car crash. It's clownish, explicit, and fearless.
There are a lot of in-jokes – knowing nods to the duality of the performance; references to Notting Hill and The Notebook – and some truly hilarious audience participation (though perhaps I'd feel differently had I been called upon to pretend to dance in a club on stage). Those roped in are generally good sports, though Palamides has to petition three audience members before one will deliver the traditional 'discovering he's cheating' voicemail. I am all ready to go, should the mic be pointed in my direction: 'Hey baby, I had so much fun last night. You left your pants behind…' There's also a lot of nakedness; I keep waiting to get used to the fact that Palamides has her boobs out for a considerable chunk of the show, but the moment never comes. After a high-energy 80 or so minutes, Palamides gives an emotional thank you and the whole room stands to applaud, and I find myself moved that this space could mean so much to so many, as I often am by collective demonstrations of emotion.
I never really wanted to move to Walthamstow – leaving Islington was a financial necessity more than anything. But I'm getting to know it, growing to love it, more each day. Here's hoping those drawn out to the end of the Victoria Line by our very own Soho Theatre don't feel the same, because house prices are bad enough as it is.
[See also: The solitary life of bees]
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Metro
4 hours ago
- Metro
‘It was a slap in the face when Ed Westwick got the role I auditioned for'
Sitting at a booth in Soho Theatre's cafe on a Thursday morning, actor Jassa Ahluwalia tells the story of being out for dinner when he received an email about a job that felt like his 'Hollywood moment'. 'It seemed that everything that I'd been working towards was coming to fruition. The universe had beautifully conspired to land this perfect role in my lap,' the 34-year-old tells Metro. Pulling out his phone and opening his inbox, he leans forward to read the message out loud: 'Character breakdown – this is a large supporting character. Note: It is crucial to the narrative and the character's story arc that Brooke is convincingly accepted in aristocratic circles as white British. The character is currently written as having Indian heritage on his mother's side.' 'They were describing me ,' he recalls. Born to a white English mum and a brown Punjabi dad in 1990, Jassa couldn't believe his luck that the TV pirate series, Sandokan, set in South Asia, was being made and he had a chance to play the role of Lord James Brooke. 'It felt like the acting industry was listening, paying attention and caring,' he remembers, his eyes widening at the memory. His self-tape — a short video where Jassa spoke about his heritage and read lines — led to an invitation for a screen test, and in November 2023, Jassa made his way to Bang Studios, just a stone's throw from where he sits today. 'Even just talking about it, my stomach's remembering the emotion. I was tingling, I was so alive,' the actor says. 'It sounds ridiculous, but I was trying to find ways to stay grounded. They had a miniature Buddha with a little tea light in the loo. I had a moment with it, touching its feet while thinking of how far I'd come to get to where I was. I was saying 'Thank you'.' After hair and makeup, Jassa was guided to a room filled with casting directors and producers, all crowded behind a desk with monitors. Over 30 minutes, he performed a scene under lights and cameras, partly in Punjabi, which was, he says, requested by the room. As the meeting ended with hugs, the word 'perfect' was lobbed around, and Jassa felt things couldn't have gone any better. However, on December 15, he got a rejection email. It praised 'utterly wonderful' Jassa for his 'beautiful work', but told him they weren't going to be progressing with him. When Jassa asked for more detailed feedback, he says he was told there was 'nothing constructive to pass on'. 'It was heartbreaking. I didn't know how it was possible to nail it so hard and still not get the gig,' he admits. As an actor since his teens, Jassa was accustomed to the rejection process, so he picked himself up and moved on. That was, until he read in the press a few months later that the role he had auditioned for — Lord James Brooke — had been given to Gossip Girl star Ed Westwick. It was 'like a slap in the face', remembers Jassa. 'They wanted the guy from Gossip Girl that people knew, and all that specificity and vulnerability that I shared didn't count for anything. The whole experience made me feel unimportant – my mix was just a tick box for a second, but it wasn't actually important. 'A little bit of my love for the industry died at that moment. I thought, 'F**k this, why am I pouring my heart and soul into this business?'' Sandokan is a reboot of an Italian TV series that aired in 1976 and was sold to 85 countries. Fremantle-owned Lux Vide is now putting a new spin on it with Can Yaman taking the lead role. It will air on the Italian state broadcaster RAI and be distributed worldwide. Set in the mid-19th century on the island of Borneo, the native Dayak tribes are dominated by ruthless Brits. Sandokan doesn't initially pick a side, but when he marries the daughter of the British consul, Marianne (Alanah Bloor), he begins to fight against colonial powers with his motley crew. The synopsis teases that pirate hunter Lord James Brooke (Ed Westwick) 'will stop at nothing to capture Sandokan and win Marianne's heart.' Angeliqa Devi, who is Bengali, has been announced as playing Brooke's mother, Hita. Jassa says that 'unless there's been a radical change to the script' Ed's character is still mixed. To Jassa's knowledge, an important part of the plot is that people are made to believe that Hita is a servant, not Brooke's parent. The rejection felt extra painful, admits Jassa, because he struggled with an 'obsessive desperation' to succeed due to a complex relationship with his mixed identity. 'It's no coincidence that I associate performing with a feeling of belonging because of an early happy memory I have of dancing Bhangra as a kid on the streets in India,' he explains with a smile, showing a photo from the trip. 'I was always unconsciously trying to get back to that.' Jassa studied at a subsidised arts program in Leicestershire throughout his school years, which made him feel that an acting career was 'tangibly achievable.' His youthful optimism felt well-placed when he landed a role on the BBC coming-of-age series Some Girls, playing lovable bad boy Rocky in 2012. 'I had a few years of things snowballing with parts in Casualty, Peaky Blinders, Ripper Street and The Whale. I was around a crowd of people, like John Boyega and David Gyasi, who were bubbling then blowing up. I thought it was going to happen for me, and then… it didn't. 'There had been a shift in the industry towards trying to tell more representative stories, but my voice wasn't welcome in that conversation,' he says of the 2010s. 'It was surface-level, productions just wanted to look diverse.' Jassa became increasingly frustrated with a landscape where the role of mixed-race characters felt more like an exercise rather than a thoughtful process, despite being the fastest-growing demographic in the UK. He cites one episode of Line of Duty where they say one of the suspects is mixed race [in the opener of season five, Vihaan Malhotra is asked to describe the woman who has been blackmailing him], 'but they don't say what mix, but everyone is like 'cool, understood'.' In 2019, Jassa felt a desire to take action after a follower responded to a video of him speaking Punjabi on social media, expressing shock at his fluency due to him being 'only half'. The actor quickly replied that he was 'both, not half', which went on to become a popular hashtag, as well as a TEDx Talk, documentary, and a book deal. As he grew more vocal, Jassa also became increasingly keen to incorporate his heritage into his acting. 'I wanted to bring my Punjabi-ness to work, because for years it felt like it was going to limit me,' he explains. 'It wasn't somebody explicitly sitting me down and saying, 'You should never talk about your Punjabi heritage', but the little signals I got were that to get ahead, you need to conform as much as you possibly can.' When asked what needs to change to strip these attitudes, Jassa — who is a member of Equity, the UK's trade union for the performing arts and entertainment industries — has a list ready and reaches into his rucksack to pull out a notebook filled with pages of scribbles. Although, he barely needs to glance at them: equality, finances, and intention need to be addressed, he explains. 'In any recruitment process, you expect people to be treated the same. I was asked in my audition to riff in Punjabi. Was Ed Westwick asked to do that?' Moving to his next point, he says: 'It all comes down to money. We're living in a time where the arts are increasingly under attack, so people in power are making safer choices, which uphold what has gone before. 'We're not getting any radical shift forward in this climate, so audiences are being deprived of incredible, world-changing, creative work from talented people who need to prioritise feeding their families, so leave the industry. 'Ed's involvement was probably a lot easier to justify to the finance team than mine, but we need to be thinking of why we are telling stories. Is it a white presenting mixed character for exotic dramatic intrigue, or because they are exploring an underrepresented part of history with sensitivity and authenticity?' As Jassa gets more passionate in his point-making, his voice shakes, and the actor admits: 'I find it hard to balance my personal emotions with my rational union brain.' However, the reason behind it all is simple, he adds: 'These stories should be told because we should be reflecting the society we live in, so everyone feels seen.' More Trending As for Jassa himself, he's in a happy place and is focused on writing more books, spreading his message further to challenge misconceptions and making changes through his role in the union. As he gets set to cycle off to his next engagement, he says: 'Now that I feel I have found a sense of home within myself, I'm not craving it as much from performance. 'I am no longer content to quietly pass as white, I want to assert my Punjabi heritage. I want mixed people on screen as they are, not as ethnically ambiguous shapeshifters. 'Being a chameleon is part of the joy of being an actor, but I want to play with my true colours.' View More » Metro has contacted Fremantle's Lux Vide for comment . Follow Jassa on Instagram here. Do you have a story you'd like to share? Get in touch by emailing Share your views in the comments below. MORE: I sold a bikini on a preloved site – now I'm wondering who bought it MORE: We went out with London's 'pickpocket hunter' to watch him sniff out thieves MORE: I'm a part time witch and use my powers to get back at my exes
Daily Mail
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Sonia Kruger reveals her VERY surprising date to the Logies - as she reveals plans for a wild night out after flashing a ring on wedding finger
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Metro
10 hours ago
- Metro
This is what a porn star really thinks of age verification on adult sites
This week a modelling website I've been using for decades suddenly demanded I upload my passport to prove my age. Me. The wrinkliest model in town! I giggled, then realised they weren't kidding, and got grumpy. It turns out that the UK, once a sensible isle, is now pioneering a new national pastime: legislating the internet into oblivion. The latest entrant into this noble tradition is the Online Safety Act, which aims to make the web safer for children by demanding adult sites implement industrial-strength age verification. It sounds reasonable. After all, no one wants kids stumbling onto triple anal fisting when they're innocently trying to get their homework done. More seriously, there's no doubt we should be doing all we can to protect children from the dangers of social media. But like many well-meaning policies, this one seems to have been cooked up by people who understand the internet the same way Victorian physicians understood female hysteria. How do you prove someone's age online? The government's answer is 'upload ID', which, in porn terms, translates to: please send a picture of your driver's license to a company whose business model is tits. I mean, maybe we'll look after it and not tell everyone… unless your preferences are totally hilarious. X Factor icon Diana Vickers and Metro's dating expert Alice Giddings dive into your wildest sex, love, and dating dilemmas – every Tuesday. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. And be sure to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can also join the fun on our WhatsApp Group Chat here – share your dilemmas and Diana and Alice may just give you a call. Porn is one of the few areas where people universally do not want their personal data stored. Do we really want some anonymous third-party age verifier compiling a database of who's watching what, and when? That's not a regulatory measure — it's a blackmailer's wet dream. There's also the illusion of effectiveness. The idea that teenagers — the most technologically savvy and hormonally motivated demographic on earth — will be stymied by a login screen would be charming in its innocence, were it not so irritating. Adult content producers now face a labyrinth of compliance hell. They must become data custodians, biometric bouncers, and security experts, lest they be slapped with gigantic fines. A clips site is demanding I remove videos of my mother because I didn't obtain a model release form for her when they were uploaded many years ago. It wasn't obligatory then, and now I can't, her being dead. These are the only videos I have of my mother. I hope society feels its moral well-being is saved if they're destroyed. The law doesn't just affect the mega-sites; it hits indie producers, like me and many of my chums. If we don't adhere to these rules we risk being shut out of our own audience. This isn't regulation, to me. It's gentrification and class war. Plenty of women dream of turning pictures of their feet into a side hustle – but these new rules could spell an end to that. People won't stop consuming porn, either — they'll just get it from sketchier places. It's like prohibition… the drinkers kept on drinking. More Trending The assumption that all pornographic content is generated by some evil sleaze machine aimed at corrupting youth is nonsense. Much of modern adult content, including everything I make, is inclusive, ethical, and joyous. The law punishes the people trying to do it right, while shady operators just change servers and keep streaming. If the UK really wanted to help, maybe they'd teach proper digital literacy, invest in real sex education, and talk to actual experts in online safety. View More » Sadly none of those options make for a snappy soundbite. Do you have a story to share? Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@ MORE: My mum produced a porn film – all I remember is her tears MORE: Britain's most tattooed man can't watch porn under new rules because it doesn't recognise his face MORE: BT pays out £18,000,000 to EE and Plusnet customers after Ofcom ruling
