7pm. 5 March. Set Social
Fuck North London
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(seriously, what is it with North Londoners?)
In these hyper-polarised times, Turncoats tackles the biggest schism of our divided nation. Buckingham Palace vs Crystal Palace. The Ivy members club vs The Ivy House community pub. The ultimate showdown: North vs South London. TICKETS.
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When media pundits complain of the capital soaking up all Britain’s public investment they are half right — the north half. Of all the 272 Tube stations, fewer than 9% are south of the Thames while 39 out of 41 Elizabeth Line stations are in the North. Yet ironically North London’s transport generosity seems to create a culture that is anything but.
While southern Londoners obligingly drag themselves North at the behest of friends in Clapton or Chalk Farm without complaint, persuading a Northerner to cross the river in the other direction is like drawing blood from a stone. There are at least 59 ways to cross the river in the capital by foot, boat, road, rail or cable car, yet many North Londoners still insist the south of their city is “difficult to get to”.
What is it about North London that breeds a pampered psyche too timid to venture beyond Hackney or try the Thameslink? Why would so many North Londoners rather queue round the block for a cramped seat at an over-hyped small plates restaurant in Soho when for half the price they could have a vat of Ecuadorian fish soup or a mountain of Nigerian suya on The Old Kent Road? Who would choose the Maseratis of Knightsbridge, the banker-wankers of the City and the insufferably smug postcard families of Stoke Newington over Burgess Park barbecues, the Blackheath Kite Day and that sauna in the Finnish church?
7pm. 18 September. Set Social
Bored of Biennales
Are art and architecture festivals dead?
Hundreds of biennales swamp the design, architecture and art worlds with a slew of underfunded industry jamborees. Often impenetrable, these grandiose platforms string out detached lofty themes with negligible impact. Let Venice sink!
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The most recent Venice biennale is a tech-bro fever dream bristling with AI-generated text and exhibits sponsored by multi-national corporates. The curatorial models of the gallery world are dragging architecture and design into a discursive cul-de-sac ruled by trends and over intellectualisation, separating them from the realities of construction, engineering and ordinary people.
There is nothing to gain from private views at institutions propped up on oil and opioid money, just as there is nothing cool about “radical new ways” of showing off colonial plunder. The era of the international design festival, the jet-setting celebrity curator and architecture’s love affair with the trappings of gallery culture must end!
TICKETS
7pm. 12 June. Set Social
The Ick: Is London bad for love?
Sifting through prospective suitors in search of sparks. Quick to discard, and be discarded. Is it the apps? Is it us? Or is it London itself that makes modern dating in the capital hell?
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How did a throwaway line from a 90s American courtroom comedy come to dominate the love lives of Londoners? Neurospicy barrister Ally McBeal coins “The Ick” 15 episodes into her eponymous TV show to dodge a date. A quarter century later her quip is lurking behind abandoned flings, ghosted Hinge matches and lonely evenings in.
Dating in London is, and makes us, tough. We cultivate hard disinterested temperaments. Quick to discard, and be discarded. Scything our way through prospective suitors in search of sparks. Maybe the city is to blame; the long slog between Stokey and Brockley evaporating any frisson of attraction before it can bloom. Is it rising rents, pushing us ever further from our friends and the possibilities of spontaneous connections?
Perhaps the cult of individualism central to London’s neoliberal economy has tricked us into believing we can have it all. A best friend, a perfect housemate, someone to share a mortgage and parenthood while bringing us to toe curling orgasms – an insane shopping list from a consumerism fever dream of run amok. Or is it the apps; the worst tendencies of gendered flirting recodified by a Texan tech giant.
Spare Room ads which declare “no couples, please” (). Landlords who don’t allow partners to sleep over (). There is a special place in hell for politicians who have allowed the housing crisis to reach a point that a breakup can bring destitution. But what, if anything, can we do? What does a city good for loving and being loved in look and feel like?
Romance vs gentrification. Sex and the cityscape. This event, mixing comedy with heartfelt debate asks, is London giving us The Ick?
7pm. 20 February. Set Social
Taylor Wimpytopia
There, a property tycoon president poised to “drill, baby drill”. Here, a government promising to “build, build, build”: The year of the YIMBY is upon us. Shills label anyone questioning new property development myopic luddites opposing progress, but will more quivers of lumpen luxury tower blocks solve the housing crisis? Surely we’re not that stupid!?
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Over a million new homes are slated for Britain, but who are they for, where will they go and how will they help? Will a million badly-built bricky boxes, strangled by cars and faux Regency ornament nurture thriving community life? Will tens of thousands of newly minted cowboy landlords make renting less hellish for those trapped in the eviction cycle?
Turncoats, a rambunctious series of events fusing comedy and debate returns to London to thrash it out. TICKETS
Upcoming Turncoats Events (dates TBA)
🧢 The Enlightened Lad
🙊 The End of Woke?
Abolition Derby
Too many panel debates are tedious, tepid and dull. Turncoats is a shot in the arm of public debate mixing humour, vodka* and robust ideas presented in partnership with the Architecture Foundation and Future Architects Front.
* vodka not compulsory ;)
