The 14 best things to see at SXSW London 2025
SXSW London won't just be the debut South by Southwest festival in London but the first in all of Europe. Next week the event – for which Time Out is an official media partner – will take over dozens of iconic Shoreditch venues for a week-long feast of talks, panels, music concerts and film screenings.
Between June 2 and June 7 SXSW London will host literally hundreds of events: a total of 420 talks and panels, 250 film screenings and over 500 gigs. The lineup for the Texan festival's first London event is stacked with big names: included are talks by the likes of actor Idris Elba, comedian Katherine Ryan and footballer Cesc Fàbregas, and gigs from names such as Tems, Mabel and Erykah Badu (the latter performing under her alias DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown).
Heading to SXSW London but still undecided on who or what to see? Here's Time Out's list of the top things to look forward to at SXSW London, featuring the insights of our global film editor Phil de Semlyen and music expert Georgia Evans.
Music
Chosen by Georgia Evans.
Uncle Junior
These kids are far cooler than most of us were at 17 (did we all dress like we were desperate to be in Skins?), bursting onto the London underground music scene in a frenzy of harsh noise, hardcore and experimental rock. Erratic performances at The George and Shacklewell Arms have earned Uncle Junior cult status, despite only dropping two singles so far. The first, 'I Love You, Kenneth Copeland', is a fantastic summation of what the three-piece is all about: ironic lyrics, jagged production and chaotic, youthful energy.
Jaguar Shoes (Main Room), June 2 2025, 7-7.30pm.
Village Underground (Village Underground), June 3 2025, 4-4.30pm.
Pa Salieu
Rapper Pa Salieu first made headlines with his single 'Frontline', which was the most-played track of 2020 on BBC Radio 1Xtra. The following year he released the Ivor Novello-nominated mixtape Send Them to Coventry, cementing his place as one of the UK's most exciting emerging acts. Despite a break in releases (due to being incarcerated) Salieu is still making hits, such as the dancefloor-ready Disclosure single 'King Steps'. Catch him at SXSW to hear his blend of afrobeats, grime and UK drill in an intimate setting at Village Underground.
Village Underground (Village Underground), June 4 2025, 8-8.40pm.
TWST
Informed by the likes of AG Cook and Charli xcx (who played her lead single from the TWST0002 (Upgraded) EP, 'Upgrade (Crook's System Update)' in a DJ set), twst is a hyperpop protégé ready for global domination. Growing up in rural Wales, they spent their early years working at their father's chicken factory. Eventually, twst swapped the countryside for supporting slots with MØ, interviews on BBC Radio 1 and writing with K-pop powerhouse record label, HYBE. Prepare for a dynamic live performance that's filled with glistening electronic flourishes and ethereal vocals.
Jaguar Shoes (Main Room), June 6 2025, 10-10.35pm.
Jasmine 4.t
Manchester-based singer-songwriter Jasmine 4.t's debut album You Are The Morning was produced by US supergroup boygenius and received widespread critical praise upon its release earlier this year. The first UK act to be Phoebe Bridgers' Saddest Factory Records, Jasmine uses her music to shine a light on the saving graces of queer friendship and formative experiences of being a trans woman in this country. Her production methods span sorrowful string arrangements to ferocious guitar solos, all backed with intimate lyrics that make her an absolute must-see.
93 Feet East (Live Room), June 7 2025, 6-6.30pm.
DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown aka Erykah Badu
Performing as DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown, Erykah Badu will be performing alongside multi-instrumentalist Henry Lau on the House of R&B stage. Expect a cosmic blend of jazz, R&B, pop and experimental dance music closing the day of DJ Ace's carefully curated programme Everything R&B. This is an enticing and unusual way to catch the five-time Grammy winner in an intimate setting.
Shoreditch Town Hall (Shoreditch Town Hall Stage), June 6 2025, 11-11.59pm.
Film
Chosen by Phil de Semlyen.
The first ever SXSW London film programme offers a typically provocative, edgy and enticing array of movies, shorts and talks from the UK offshoot of the world-famous Austin arts festival. You'll find new films and new voices in its line-up – all of them exciting, all carefully curated to fit the new festival's ethos of discovery. There are two world premieres and 30 UK premieres at the festival – but plenty to look out for across the programme. Here's four films to look out for.
The Life Of Chuck
Love Stephen King? SXSW London is here for you with two new adaptations of the Maine horror legend's work. Alongside a serialisation of his 2019 sci-fi horror The Institute, a spiky sci-fi horror about telekinetic kids being experimented on in a mysterious facility, you'll find Mike Flanagan's (Doctor Sleep) take on this short story from the cheerier end of the King oeuvre. Tom Hiddleston plays an ordinary joe called Chuck Krantz who may hold the key to an impending apocalypse. Mark Hamill, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Karen Gillan co-star.
June 7. Rich Mix Screen 1, 8.40pm-10.30pm and Curzon Hoxton Screen 1, 9.15pm-11.15pm.
Stans
The film strand of the festival kicks off with a sideways look at fan culture courtesy of Slim Shady himself, Eminem. The rapper co-produces a doc that turns the camera on fans and fan culture – from the enthusiasts to the obsessive stans – in a 'revealing, edgy, and disarmingly personal journey into the world of superfandom'. Its SXSW London world premiere should give the film programme a turbo-charged lift off.
June 2. Barbican Centre, Cinema Screen 1, 6.30pm-8.55pm.
June 5. Barbican Centre, Cinema Screen 1, 9.15pm-11pm.
Queer as Punk
One of the joys of any good film fest is the chance to dive into new cultures and learn a thing or two about what makes them tick. In the case of this raucous rock doc, it's raw, punk energy as embodied by queer Malay band Shh…Diam ('shut up'). It's a perceptive, empathetic and high-energy journey into what it's like to be trans and queer in a country where same-sex relationships remain illegal. Expect a music doc like no other as this unique four-piece lets rip.
June 5. Rich Mix Screen 1, 8.30pm-10.23pm.
June 7. Curzon Hoxton Screen 3, 2pm-3.38pm.
Everyone Is Lying To You For Money
Crypto bros come under the spotlight in The O.C. star-turned-filmmaker Ben McKenzie's cryptocurrency exposé, another SXSW London world premiere. Filmed over three years and spanning New York, London, Austin, El Salvador and Miami, it'll open your eyes to the shadowy corners of the crypto industry. McKenzie even tracks down big-name fraudsters like Sam Bankman-Fried and Alex Mashinsky to get the scoop on the dark side of crypto. Planning on investing your life's savings in Bitcoin? Book a ticket.
June 6. Rich Mix Screen 1, 6pm-7.55pm.
Talks and panels
Idris Elba
Award-winning actor and household name Idris Elba is one of SXSW London's headline conference speakers. The actor, who is also a musician, entrepreneur, anti-knife crime campaigner and rumoured future candidate for London's mayoralty, will be speaking in a talk named 'Creativity as Capital for Change'. He'll be talking about how creativity can be used as fuel for real economic and social transformation, as well as to 'challenge injustice and unlock new economic models'. If you can't get enough of Elba, he'll also feature in a Q&A alongside rappers Giggs and Nas after a showing of Meji Alabi's film Victory on Saturday (June 7).
Idris Elba in Conversation. Creativity as Capital for Change: Truman Brewery (SXSW London Stage), June 4 2025, 4.45pm-5.30pm.
Victory + Q&A. Shoreditch Town Hall (Shoreditch Town Hall Stage), June 7, 2025, 2pm-3.20pm.
Dame Jane Goodall
Dame Jane Goodall has spent over six decades studying chimpanzees, and at SXSW London she'll impart some of that wisdom upon lucky Londoners. What's more is that Dame Jane won't just be chatting chimps – the 91-year-old ethologist, conservationist and UN Messenger for Peace will be talking (with CNBC broadcaster Tania Bryer) about a wider range of topics including 'hope, humanity, and the future of our planet'. Couldn't be timelier and more essential, if you ask us.
In conversation with Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE. Truman Brewery (SXSW London Stage), June 3 2025, 3.10pm-3.55pm.
Bimini
Former Time Out cover star Bimini Bon Boulash will host a live episode of podcast The Pieces with Bimini at SXSW London, with reality TV star Olivia Attwood (of Love Island and The Only Way is Essex) as their guest. Drag queen, author, recording artist and model Bimini's podcast is all about revealing the moments that shaped their guests' identities, and the live edition will be at Shoreditch Town Hall on Friday.
The Pieces With Bimini. Shoreditch Town Hall (Shoreditch Town Hall Stage), June 6 2025, 12.05pm-12.35pm.
Dina Asher-Smith
Former world championship gold medal-winning runner Dina Asher-Smith will be joined by ELLE editor-in-chief Kenya Hunt to talk about the relationship between women in sport and luxury fashion. Asher-Smith, who is currently a contributing editor at ELLE and has been on the cover of the mag several times, will talk about the 'growing relationship between sport and luxury fashion', as well as delve into her career on and off the track.
How The Power of Women in Sport is Influencing Luxury Fashion. Shoreditch Town Hall (Shoreditch Town Hall Stage), June 6 2025, 1.05pm-1.35pm.
Various AI talks
Still baffled by AI? Over its six days SXSW London will host some of the biggest cheeses in artificial intelligence, here to discuss how AI will impact stuff like videomaking, business, journalism and industry, as well as talk about AI ethics. Our picks? 'The AI Voice Revolution' with Mati Staniszewski (CEO of AI audio firm ElevenLabs), 'AI in 2030' with Azeem Azhar (founder of future-focusing newsletter Exponential View) and 'The Video Revolution' with Victor Riparbelli of AI video company Synthesia.
The Video Revolution. Truman Brewery (SXSW London Stage), June 5 2025, 12.40pm-1.05pm.
The AI Voice Revolution. Truman Brewery (SXSW London Stage), June 4, 2025, 11.45am-2.10pm.
AI in 2030. Shoreditch Electric (Shoreditch Electric Stage), June 2, 2025, 10.15am-10.45am.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Belfast Telegraph
21 hours ago
- Belfast Telegraph
Loretta Swit who played Houlihan on pioneering TV series M.A.S.H dies aged 87
Publicist Harlan Boll said Swit died on Friday at her home in New York City, likely from natural causes. Swit and Alan Alda were the longest-serving cast members on M.A.S.H which was based on Robert Altman's 1970 film, which was itself based on a novel by Richard Hooker, the pseudonym of H Richard Hornberger. The CBS show aired for 11 years from 1972 to 1983, revolving around life at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, which gave the show its name. The two-and-a-half-hour finale on February 28 1983 lured over 100 million viewers, the most-watched episode of any scripted series ever. Rolling Stone magazine put M.A.S.H at No 25 of the best TV shows of all time, while Time Out put it at No 34. It won the Impact Award at the 2009 TV Land annual awards, as well as a Peabody Award in 1975 'for the depth of its humour and the manner in which comedy is used to lift the spirit and, as well, to offer a profound statement on the nature of war'. In Altman's 1970 film, Houlihan was a one-dimensional character — a sex-crazed bimbo who earned the nickname 'Hot Lips'. Her intimate moments were broadcast to the entire camp after somebody planted a microphone under her bed. Sally Kellerman played Houlihan in the movie version and Swit took it over for TV, eventually deepening and creating her into a much fuller character. The sexual appetite was played down and she was not even called 'Hot Lips' in the later years. The growing awareness of feminism in the seventies spurred Houlihan's transformation from caricature to real person, but a lot of the change was due to Swit's influence on the scriptwriters. 'Around the second or third year I decided to try to play her as a real person, in an intelligent fashion, even if it meant hurting the jokes,' Swit told Suzy Kalter, author of The Complete Book of M.A.S.H. 'To oversimplify it, I took each traumatic change that happened in her life and kept it. I didn't go into the next episode as if it were a different character in a different play. She was a character in constant flux; she never stopped developing.' Swit appeared in all but 11 episodes of the series, nearly four times longer than the Korean War itself, exploring issues like PTSD, sexism and racism. After the TV series, Swit became a vocal animal welfare activist, selling SwitHeart perfume and her memoir through her official website, with proceeds benefitting various animal-related non-profit groups. In 1983, she married actor Dennis Holahan, whom she had met when he was a guest star on M.A.S.H. They divorced in 1995. Born in Passaic, New Jersey, the daughter of Polish immigrants, Swit enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, then paid her dues for years in touring productions. In 1969, she arrived in Hollywood and was soon seen in series such as Gunsmoke, Hawaii Five-O, Mission Impossible and Bonanza before she got her big break with M.A.S.H in 1972.
Time Out
a day ago
- Time Out
Oh, Mary! director Sam Pinkleton on comedy, truth and the right kind of wrong
"I'm obsessed with rollercoasters," says Sam Pinkleton, the director of the Broadway smash Oh, Mary!"Much more than theater, unfortunately." He's semi-joking about that last part, but it does give a sense of the sensibility he has brought to Cole Escola's zany pseudo-historical farce about Mary Todd Lincoln—who, in Escola's fevered comic vision, is a raging boozehound clinging to delusional hopes of stardom as a cabaret chanteuse. It has been Pinkleton's job to keep the play on track as, not unlike a rollercoaster, it races through Mary's wild highs and lows, evoking screams of laughter. The assignment is harder than the result makes it look: not only to keep the comedy rolling, nearly without stopping for breath, but also to sustain the right tonal balance of irreverence and celebration, and even to tease out latent strands of feeling. Pinkleton has worked on nine Broadway shows, but mostly as a movement director or choreographer; he earned his first Tony nomination for his excellent works Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812. Oh, Mary!, his Broadway debut as a director, has earned him a second nomination this year. We talked with him about about actresses, camp and what makes Oh, Mary! such a wild ride. In advance of the Tony Awards on June 8, Time Out has conducted in-depth interviews with select nominees. We'll be rolling out those interviews every day this week; the full collection to date is here. You've had projects on Broadway before, but they've been as a choreographer. This is your Broadway debut as a director. And it seems to have gone very well! It has, definitely. It has objectively gone well. Because it's a farce, the movement is very tightly orchestrated. Would it be fair to call it choreographed? It's definitely rigorous and calculated. We're going after a very specific thing with it. But it felt—not to be reductive about it—it just felt like directing a play. It felt like directing a play that had a lot of extreme physical assignments and requirements that we wanted to approach with honesty and stupidity. Thinking about it as meticulously choreographed came after the fact. At no point at the beginning of it, when Cole and I were talking about it, was I thinking, "Well, I'm a highly experienced choreographer and that is gonna really come in handy." It was just, Oh, Let's roll our sleeves up and throw our bodies around. And Cole is only capable of performing at 125%, so with Cole at the center of it, it could only be a Super Bowl physical event. I had the pleasure of seeing Betty Gilpin as Mary during her stint as a replacement, and she gave an immensely physical performance as well. I mean, that shouldn't be a surprise—because she was in GLOW for goodness' sake, which couldn't be more physical—but it was interesting to see her in the part because she was a very different Mary. Betty Gilpin is an Olympian in every way. She is the most exacting and fierce—I mean, she learned how to wrestle professionally for a TV show, and that's the energy she came in with. She and Cole—and Tituss, in a way—are very similar in that they're athletes. They approached the play like athletes. And it's not pleasant psychological work. It's like working in a butcher shop. When Cole is playing Mary, it has a protective coloration of camp in a way that's just inherent to Cole's sensibility and presence on stage. Whereas with Betty, it felt really raw and emotional. She was still very funny, but she was really invested. Because Mary seems bipolar or something, if you take her literally. I keep saying I've had to direct the play four times now—which has been great. I hope to direct the play 30 times—but Betty, because she was the first, taught me how good the play is, if that makes sense. Because all of a sudden there's a great actress who shows up to work with a script and is taking it at face value, and it's like, Oh yeah, right! This is about a woman in crisis who has this incredible need, who will do anything she can to get what she wants. And that sounds like every play I've ever heard of before; it's the bones of good drama. And I totally agree with you: She played it straight. She just did it. And that made me really excited about seeing actresses do it. Because you know Cole; Cole loves an actress. And I don't even mean on Broadway—I mean seeing that lady in Cleveland who was amazing in Ibsen do this. Yes! I wanna see the regional theater ladies get their fingers on this because it's such a juicy part. I mean, Cole wrote it for themself and is glorious and perfect as Mary. But it turns out it can work well even without them. Completely. I think we've talked about this so much that people are tired of hearing about it, but it's true: In rehearsal, the thing we did was take it dead seriously. We tried to make it as honest and as deep as possible. The means of doing that were often completely idiotic, but we weren't trying to make gags. We were trying to really approach this woman with love. And I do think Betty really anchored it in gravity. But yeah, I wanna see all those regional theater ladies do it. I also wanna hear them say cunt. [Laughs.] They don't get to say cunt in Ibsen. Not as often as one would like! Someone should do it in Hedda Gabler, maybe. But Oh, Mary! is very much a comedy, which is one of the things that makes the Tony race for Best Place so interesting this year. I liked all five of the nominees a lot, but they are very, very different. It's always a crapshoot, but comedies are historically at a big disadvantage. Yasmina Reza won for Art and God of Carnage, but it's hard to think of others. Neil Simon never won until his late-career dramedies. Tom Stoppard won for Travesties and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which are sort of comedies I guess, but they have such a literary bent. Yes. We're like that, Adam! What's the difference? [ Laughs. ] I just mean that if Oh, Mary! were to win Best Play, that would really be kind of unprecedented for the kind of hard comedy it is. And yet it feels like the show is really in the running. As you say, it's a crapshoot. It's been an extraordinary season, and I love all of the plays that were nominated, which is strange and rare. Plays that are not regurgitated! So I don't know what's gonna happen, and I certainly can't try to predict that. But I have watched the play get taken really seriously by audiences over the life cycles of it. When we decided to come to Broadway, we were like, Okay, we're gonna do it for a very short amount of time just so that more dumb gay people can see it. But over the last year, I have watched tourist families enjoy our show and I've watched people who read The New Yorker and go to every play enjoy our show. And I'm sure there are people who don't enjoy our show, but it has been a really pleasant surprise—and frankly, quite moving—to see the show get embraced by an audience that is quite a bit broader than what Cole and I were thinking about when we started making it. Because the play is oddly sincere and uncynical, and it's made with a lot of love. It's made by people who—I am so tired of hearing myself say this, but it's unfortunately true—it's made by theater nerds. It's not like, "Fuck you! We're doing this play!" I think part of why it works is that Cole loves the form so much, and our designers love the form so much. The production strikes such a tricky balance, because to some extent it's gonna be tongue-in-cheek; it's designed and performed in a kind of low-tech style that knowingly verges on amateurism, which is part of its camp sensibility. You don't want it to be perfect, because then it just is the thing itself; it has to be something that aspires to be the thing but in some way isn't quite the thing. Camp is so complicated and we don't need to go down a long rabbit hole about it—I mean, I literally spent an hour at Julius' last week trying to explain to a straight Marine. Wow, that is a community service. Yeah. Well, first I said that something was kitsch, and he didn't know what that meant, so I said, Well, it's a little like camp for straight people, but not quite, and then he didn't understand that at all. So I had to step back and find some kind of beginning… But also you explaining all this to a stray Marine at Julius is camp. So the snake is just biting its tail. [ Laughs.] Right? But it's actual camp—it's not campy, if you know what I mean. And there really isn't an exact defining line for any of these things. The production deliberately seems a certain way. You have set designers who very much know what they're doing and would be capable of designing a more realistic set if they chose to. Same with the costumes: They should look like they're out of a trunk, and the beards shouldn't look like perfect fake beards. So where does that line approximately sit for you? I have to be honest, It's a real tightrope walk. It came from a ton of trial and error, and it has been refined a lot along the way. When I look back at the pictures from tech when we did it downtown, I'm like, This is embarrassing! This wasn't a good show! 'Cause it was the wrong kind of wrong, you know? And we've been trying to find the right kind of wrong. And one thing that's really important to me is that it doesn't feel like we're mocking something. It doesn't feel like we're rolling our eyes or taking the wind out of something. We're actually embracing it and loving it. In our first conversations, Cole and I talked about doing theater in high school, when you're like, This set is completely amazing! And you look back at it in pictures and actually that set was really shitty. But it was made with love. And we talked about going to community theater where people are putting effort into something. That was the biggest thing. When community-theater designers and directors and actors make a show, they're not making fun of it. They love it. They're doing the absolute best they can with the tools they have. So yes, the bookshelf is flat and painted, but it's cared for. I think that has really been the line. And we had the privilege of refining it Off Broadway; a lot of details really changed on Broadway, actually, even though I hope it still seems like the same show. But as a group of collaborators, we got very good at feeling like, Oh, that is the show, but that's a step too far or that feels cynical or that feels like we're just trying to make people laugh or that's too good, as you say. But I think that's every show: You find that weird sweet spot and it can be kind of chemical. There's a bit of a Mickey and Judy quality. The joy of it is that they're putting up a show in the barn, and if you go to that barn show and sniff that it's not up to Ziegfeld Follies standards, you're getting it wrong. The limitations of the Lortel informed a lot for us, and also the kind of big-eyed wonder—when you're making a show in a barn or your high school or whatever—of, 'We're gonna have a set change.' But you can really only have one, so that means you just spin the set around. And that worked at the Lortel. But when we moved to Broadway, one of the first things I said to the designers was, We can't apologize for being on Broadway. The Lyceum is so beautiful, and it looks like it was designed for the play. The theater itself is funny; it looks like The Muppet Show. So I want to embrace that we're on Broadway. I want to embrace that there are people on that top balcony as opposed to, 'Yeah, we're doing this crazy downtown thing uptown, 'cause it's a prank!' It's not a prank. It looks beautiful in that theater. And the big surprise at the end of the show—you know what it is—was completely redesigned on Broadway, because we wanted to embrace the scale of the room. And if we had done what we did downtown, it would've felt like, 'Ha ha, isn't this shitty? Ha ha ha.' And that's not the story. The story is that her dreams come true. Right? And if Cole were not themself like Mary in some sense—if Cole had not actually spent 15 years performing in cabarets around the city—then it would feel quite different, I think. It would feel false. It would feel like a lie. Cole has always been so magical. I was trying to think back to the last time I saw a lead performer in a Broadway comedy who commanded the stage and the audience so completely. I'm probably forgetting someone, but the one that came to mind for me was Linda Lavin in The Tale of the Allergist's Wife. I was just about to—! As you were saying this, I was like, It's really Linda Lavin. Yes, and then I remembered that you worked with Linda! The other major production I've seen that you've directed was You Will Get Sick with her in 2022. And you were also involved with The Lyons when it was on Broadway in 2011. What was your experience of working with her? I actually told this story very recently. I met her on The Lyons, which was at its heart a comedy but went to dark places. She's the hardest worker in show business. But she was so exacting about timing and physical comedy: If I turn my head here, they'll laugh, but if I do this, they won't. Like a mad scientist, obsessive with details. And it was the coolest thing in the world to watch—to sit between her and [the playwright] Nicky Silver, who is also super exacting about comedy, and old-school: bah-pah-da-pa-dah and boom, everybody laughs. That was grad school for me, especially because we got to do that play twice. So I spent a year watching Linda make comedy, and when I asked her to do You Will Get Sick, which was ultimately her last play, she said yes very quickly, which was cool, because she wanted to do weird, unexpected things with new writers. She was 85 and had three-page monologues and showed up on the first day off book. At the beginning of every rehearsal, I make everybody do an idiotic physical warmup to pop music—no opting out. And Linda Lavin at 85 was very happily jiggling around to Rihanna. I talked to Cole about her all the time because they sadly didn't know each other. After Cole, she's the funniest person I've ever met. She would do the show and then go to the bar and continue to make you laugh. She was a very major loss for me. She became a very good friend in the last few years of her life. Did you know her at all? No. I got to meet her a couple of times, but no. Well, all the rumors are true. We just finished the Linda Lavin memorial tour: four different events, each gayer than the last. And all anyone could say was just what a hard worker she was and how rigorous and not-accidental it was. I think that's a thing she really shares with Cole. It's easy to come see Oh, Mary! and say it's hilarious. Adam—it's so much work. And there is no detail too small. It's a very old-school thing. And there definitely is an old-school quality to Cole's sensibility. That's evident in every aspect of their personality. And that's part of the secret in this show, I think. Oh, Mary! seems like a weird new thing on Broadway, but it works because it has deep Broadway roots—like Hamilton does, or Company. These shows that change the game can't be completely off the map, because then they wouldn't work. Totally. This is made by theater people. Cole and I are theater people. When we were designing it and teching it, the things we were talking about were, like, Jerry Herman musicals and boulevard comedies and—plays! Plays. I probably shouldn't say this, but for something that has been lauded for being so unconventional, it's really conventional. It sort of sneaks in. By the end you realize, Oh wait! This is a play! It's a play with a couch! And I appreciate you asking about it being serious as a play, because that is a thing I really care about. I care about it because I think it's such an exacting piece of writing. It's certainly serious about being entertaining. But there isn't an obvious message. I mean, a lot of plays have a feeling of importance because they're about something important. Everything is an issue play now, or else people don't think it's important enough to be on Broadway. But I don't know what the issue is in Oh, Mary! I don't think there's an issue that's like, 'We're upset about healthcare policy so we gotta fight it out in the streets of Detroit.' But we talked a lot in rehearsal about how the story was gonna end for her. And there were a lot of different versions of it. And it became very important to me and Cole that she won. That she got it. And I have grown to be very moved—watching, like, my dad from Southern Virginia watch Oh, Mary! —by the very simple thing of, like: It's about a woman who wants something and everybody thinks she's crazy. Everybody thinks she's crazy and she's fucking not. And that is meaningful to me. Well, she's not un -crazy. She's not—well— I think I would say that it's not, for me, that she's not crazy. It's that crazy people deserve things too. Totally—yes. Yes. And I do feel very moved by that. There's a little speech in a scene in the middle of the play with Mary's teacher, where she talks about the highs being too high and the lows being too low, and how being with Abe is this steadying thing because she can't have a great day. I do think that if you peel back all the layers of total fucking buffoonery, she's a character that any weirdo or anyone who has felt like a weirdo can relate to. I think Cole has gone on the record about the oddly autobiographical nature of the character and of the show. So the bones of it are rooted in truth. That's cliché, but it's absolutely true. If they weren't, we would have a 10-minute sketch. It would be a delightful 10-minute sketch, but it would be a sketch and you would get tired of it pretty quickly. Right. And this somehow keeps a comic momentum for 85 minutes, which is almost impossible these days. The pacing is relentless. But I imagine there's no good way to answer the question of how you keep that up, because it's just moment by moment, I guess. Moment by moment. And not treating the audience like idiots. Cole and I are obsessed—capital-o Obsessed —with the game of staying ahead of the audience. Part of the development of the play—because we carve away at it through previews downtown and even through previews on Broadway—is that the minute it feels like the audience is ahead of it, move on, move on, move on. And that is a science. It can be hard because there might be things that you love doing, but the fun of the ride is staying ahead of the audience. I reread every Agatha Christie book during the pandemic, and I sometimes feel like many plays are secretly mysteries. Who did what, and when? Where is it going, and why? And like in a mystery, the show plants the clues as it goes along so you can look back at the end and it all makes sense. Totally. It's the theater. It shouldn't be a passive experience. Give people something to do. It's fun when it's a ride. But you don't want the clues to stick out too obviously, or it's boring. Yes. But the ride—I actually just ran into somebody on the street who was like, 'I've seen the play eight times.' And I was like, Well, first of all, you have a sickness. But I hear that a play has a ton of secrets, and part of the fun is discovering those secrets. But it's like riding a rollercoaster. And if you love a rollercoaster, you love to ride it over and over again, even if you know where it's gonna go.
Time Out
a day ago
- Time Out
The 14 best things to see at SXSW London 2025
SXSW London won't just be the debut South by Southwest festival in London but the first in all of Europe. Next week the event – for which Time Out is an official media partner – will take over dozens of iconic Shoreditch venues for a week-long feast of talks, panels, music concerts and film screenings. Between June 2 and June 7 SXSW London will host literally hundreds of events: a total of 420 talks and panels, 250 film screenings and over 500 gigs. The lineup for the Texan festival's first London event is stacked with big names: included are talks by the likes of actor Idris Elba, comedian Katherine Ryan and footballer Cesc Fàbregas, and gigs from names such as Tems, Mabel and Erykah Badu (the latter performing under her alias DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown). Heading to SXSW London but still undecided on who or what to see? Here's Time Out's list of the top things to look forward to at SXSW London, featuring the insights of our global film editor Phil de Semlyen and music expert Georgia Evans. Music Chosen by Georgia Evans. Uncle Junior These kids are far cooler than most of us were at 17 (did we all dress like we were desperate to be in Skins?), bursting onto the London underground music scene in a frenzy of harsh noise, hardcore and experimental rock. Erratic performances at The George and Shacklewell Arms have earned Uncle Junior cult status, despite only dropping two singles so far. The first, 'I Love You, Kenneth Copeland', is a fantastic summation of what the three-piece is all about: ironic lyrics, jagged production and chaotic, youthful energy. Jaguar Shoes (Main Room), June 2 2025, 7-7.30pm. Village Underground (Village Underground), June 3 2025, 4-4.30pm. Pa Salieu Rapper Pa Salieu first made headlines with his single 'Frontline', which was the most-played track of 2020 on BBC Radio 1Xtra. The following year he released the Ivor Novello-nominated mixtape Send Them to Coventry, cementing his place as one of the UK's most exciting emerging acts. Despite a break in releases (due to being incarcerated) Salieu is still making hits, such as the dancefloor-ready Disclosure single 'King Steps'. Catch him at SXSW to hear his blend of afrobeats, grime and UK drill in an intimate setting at Village Underground. Village Underground (Village Underground), June 4 2025, 8-8.40pm. TWST Informed by the likes of AG Cook and Charli xcx (who played her lead single from the TWST0002 (Upgraded) EP, 'Upgrade (Crook's System Update)' in a DJ set), twst is a hyperpop protégé ready for global domination. Growing up in rural Wales, they spent their early years working at their father's chicken factory. Eventually, twst swapped the countryside for supporting slots with MØ, interviews on BBC Radio 1 and writing with K-pop powerhouse record label, HYBE. Prepare for a dynamic live performance that's filled with glistening electronic flourishes and ethereal vocals. Jaguar Shoes (Main Room), June 6 2025, 10-10.35pm. Jasmine 4.t Manchester-based singer-songwriter Jasmine 4.t's debut album You Are The Morning was produced by US supergroup boygenius and received widespread critical praise upon its release earlier this year. The first UK act to be Phoebe Bridgers' Saddest Factory Records, Jasmine uses her music to shine a light on the saving graces of queer friendship and formative experiences of being a trans woman in this country. Her production methods span sorrowful string arrangements to ferocious guitar solos, all backed with intimate lyrics that make her an absolute must-see. 93 Feet East (Live Room), June 7 2025, 6-6.30pm. DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown aka Erykah Badu Performing as DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown, Erykah Badu will be performing alongside multi-instrumentalist Henry Lau on the House of R&B stage. Expect a cosmic blend of jazz, R&B, pop and experimental dance music closing the day of DJ Ace's carefully curated programme Everything R&B. This is an enticing and unusual way to catch the five-time Grammy winner in an intimate setting. Shoreditch Town Hall (Shoreditch Town Hall Stage), June 6 2025, 11-11.59pm. Film Chosen by Phil de Semlyen. The first ever SXSW London film programme offers a typically provocative, edgy and enticing array of movies, shorts and talks from the UK offshoot of the world-famous Austin arts festival. You'll find new films and new voices in its line-up – all of them exciting, all carefully curated to fit the new festival's ethos of discovery. There are two world premieres and 30 UK premieres at the festival – but plenty to look out for across the programme. Here's four films to look out for. The Life Of Chuck Love Stephen King? SXSW London is here for you with two new adaptations of the Maine horror legend's work. Alongside a serialisation of his 2019 sci-fi horror The Institute, a spiky sci-fi horror about telekinetic kids being experimented on in a mysterious facility, you'll find Mike Flanagan's (Doctor Sleep) take on this short story from the cheerier end of the King oeuvre. Tom Hiddleston plays an ordinary joe called Chuck Krantz who may hold the key to an impending apocalypse. Mark Hamill, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Karen Gillan co-star. June 7. Rich Mix Screen 1, 8.40pm-10.30pm and Curzon Hoxton Screen 1, 9.15pm-11.15pm. Stans The film strand of the festival kicks off with a sideways look at fan culture courtesy of Slim Shady himself, Eminem. The rapper co-produces a doc that turns the camera on fans and fan culture – from the enthusiasts to the obsessive stans – in a 'revealing, edgy, and disarmingly personal journey into the world of superfandom'. Its SXSW London world premiere should give the film programme a turbo-charged lift off. June 2. Barbican Centre, Cinema Screen 1, 6.30pm-8.55pm. June 5. Barbican Centre, Cinema Screen 1, 9.15pm-11pm. Queer as Punk One of the joys of any good film fest is the chance to dive into new cultures and learn a thing or two about what makes them tick. In the case of this raucous rock doc, it's raw, punk energy as embodied by queer Malay band Shh…Diam ('shut up'). It's a perceptive, empathetic and high-energy journey into what it's like to be trans and queer in a country where same-sex relationships remain illegal. Expect a music doc like no other as this unique four-piece lets rip. June 5. Rich Mix Screen 1, 8.30pm-10.23pm. June 7. Curzon Hoxton Screen 3, 2pm-3.38pm. Everyone Is Lying To You For Money Crypto bros come under the spotlight in The O.C. star-turned-filmmaker Ben McKenzie's cryptocurrency exposé, another SXSW London world premiere. Filmed over three years and spanning New York, London, Austin, El Salvador and Miami, it'll open your eyes to the shadowy corners of the crypto industry. McKenzie even tracks down big-name fraudsters like Sam Bankman-Fried and Alex Mashinsky to get the scoop on the dark side of crypto. Planning on investing your life's savings in Bitcoin? Book a ticket. June 6. Rich Mix Screen 1, 6pm-7.55pm. Talks and panels Idris Elba Award-winning actor and household name Idris Elba is one of SXSW London's headline conference speakers. The actor, who is also a musician, entrepreneur, anti-knife crime campaigner and rumoured future candidate for London's mayoralty, will be speaking in a talk named 'Creativity as Capital for Change'. He'll be talking about how creativity can be used as fuel for real economic and social transformation, as well as to 'challenge injustice and unlock new economic models'. If you can't get enough of Elba, he'll also feature in a Q&A alongside rappers Giggs and Nas after a showing of Meji Alabi's film Victory on Saturday (June 7). Idris Elba in Conversation. Creativity as Capital for Change: Truman Brewery (SXSW London Stage), June 4 2025, 4.45pm-5.30pm. Victory + Q&A. Shoreditch Town Hall (Shoreditch Town Hall Stage), June 7, 2025, 2pm-3.20pm. Dame Jane Goodall Dame Jane Goodall has spent over six decades studying chimpanzees, and at SXSW London she'll impart some of that wisdom upon lucky Londoners. What's more is that Dame Jane won't just be chatting chimps – the 91-year-old ethologist, conservationist and UN Messenger for Peace will be talking (with CNBC broadcaster Tania Bryer) about a wider range of topics including 'hope, humanity, and the future of our planet'. Couldn't be timelier and more essential, if you ask us. In conversation with Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE. Truman Brewery (SXSW London Stage), June 3 2025, 3.10pm-3.55pm. Bimini Former Time Out cover star Bimini Bon Boulash will host a live episode of podcast The Pieces with Bimini at SXSW London, with reality TV star Olivia Attwood (of Love Island and The Only Way is Essex) as their guest. Drag queen, author, recording artist and model Bimini's podcast is all about revealing the moments that shaped their guests' identities, and the live edition will be at Shoreditch Town Hall on Friday. The Pieces With Bimini. Shoreditch Town Hall (Shoreditch Town Hall Stage), June 6 2025, 12.05pm-12.35pm. Dina Asher-Smith Former world championship gold medal-winning runner Dina Asher-Smith will be joined by ELLE editor-in-chief Kenya Hunt to talk about the relationship between women in sport and luxury fashion. Asher-Smith, who is currently a contributing editor at ELLE and has been on the cover of the mag several times, will talk about the 'growing relationship between sport and luxury fashion', as well as delve into her career on and off the track. How The Power of Women in Sport is Influencing Luxury Fashion. Shoreditch Town Hall (Shoreditch Town Hall Stage), June 6 2025, 1.05pm-1.35pm. Various AI talks Still baffled by AI? Over its six days SXSW London will host some of the biggest cheeses in artificial intelligence, here to discuss how AI will impact stuff like videomaking, business, journalism and industry, as well as talk about AI ethics. Our picks? 'The AI Voice Revolution' with Mati Staniszewski (CEO of AI audio firm ElevenLabs), 'AI in 2030' with Azeem Azhar (founder of future-focusing newsletter Exponential View) and 'The Video Revolution' with Victor Riparbelli of AI video company Synthesia. The Video Revolution. Truman Brewery (SXSW London Stage), June 5 2025, 12.40pm-1.05pm. The AI Voice Revolution. Truman Brewery (SXSW London Stage), June 4, 2025, 11.45am-2.10pm. AI in 2030. Shoreditch Electric (Shoreditch Electric Stage), June 2, 2025, 10.15am-10.45am.
