DISCOVER LONDONdiscoverbritainmag.com 67TAILOR-MADE PRIVATE
TOURS FOR THE DISCERNING
http://www.bhctours.co.uk | [email protected] | +44 (0)1296 620173We listen to what our clients want
and then exceed their expectations.© Highclere Castle LLP 2014TAILOR-MADE PRIVATE
TOURS FOR THE DISCERNING
http://www.bhctours.co.uk | [email protected] | +44 (0)1296 620173AT A GLANCE...Cecil Beaton’s Bright Young Things at London’s
National Portrait Gallery (12 March to 7 June
2020) celebrates the work of the English
photographer who began work at Vogue in- Stylish sepia portraits of artists, actors,
socialites and more will sit beside paintings of
others within Beaton’s glamorous circle.
http://www.npg.org.uk
The Candlelight Club lives up to its name,
with a monthly night of cocktails, cabaret and
swing bands, all set in a candle-lit speakeasy
at a secret London location
(ticket holders fi nd out
two days beforehand).
Adherence to the
dandies-and-fl appers
dress code adds to the
Prohibition atmosphere.
http://www.thecandlelightclub.comThe Palm Court at the
Sheraton Grand London
Park Lane hotel was
completed in 1927 and
retains many original Art
Deco features. Sample the
nostalgic Nineteen Twen-Tea
afternoon tea with a ‘1927’
bl end from Newby Tea or
wait for the clock to strike
19.20 every Wednesday
evening for two hours of live
music, classic drinks and
Gatsby-esque glamour.
http://www.palmcourtlondon.co.ukwritten that great modernist poem,
The Wasteland, in 1922.
In the theatre, actors like Claude Rains,
Basil Rathbone and Ronald Colman (all
three having served in the same regiment
during the First World War) were matinee
idols in London’s West End. And Ivor
Novello wasn’t just composing musicals but
starring in his first films too, with Alfred
Hitchcock giving him top billing in 1927’s
The Lodger.
The Jazz Age also influenced the world
of more serious music. William Walton,
who had befriended the poets Siegfried
Sassoon and Sacheverell Sitwell at Oxford,
had a notorious success in 1923 with
Façade. Walton was lodging in London with
Sacheverell’s sister Edith at the time and
this avant-garde piece, first performed at
the now-demolished Aeolian Hall on New
Bond Street, consisted of her declaiming
poetry from behind a screen while hisimpertinent music was performed by a small
orchestra. Meanwhile, Constant Lambert,
another darling of the 1920s London music
scene, wrote his “secular cantata” The Rio
Grande. This daring piece of symphonic
jazz was not unlike George Gershwin’s
Rhapsody in Blue and featured lyrics
written by Sacheverell Sitwell.
The Roaring Twenties, then, was a
decade that started slowly but eventually
dazzled creatively thanks in part to the
sheer gusto with which people lived life.
In London, it was a time of glamour
and cocktails, of literature and jazz, of
artistic experimentation and geometric
architecture. Sadly, it all came apart in
1929 when New York’s Wall Street Crash
cut short the roaring on both sides of the
Atlantic and ushered in the problematic and
ultimately disastrous 1930s. Nevertheless,
100 years later, it remains a stylish capsule
of London life with much to celebrate. ■Left: London’s Art
Deco Hoover Building
Below: Cecil Beaton’s
1928 photo of “Bright
Young Thing” Paula
Gellibrand, Marquesa
de Casa MauryTAILOR-MADE PRIVATE
TOURS FOR THE DISCERNING
http://www.bhctours.co.uk | [email protected] | +44 (0)1296 620173We listen to what our clients want
and then exceed their expectations.AT A GLANCE...Cecil Beaton’s Bright Young Things at London’s
National Portrait Gallery (12 March to 7 June
2020) celebrates the work of the English
photographer who began work at Vogue in- Stylish sepia portraits of artists, actors,
socialites and more will sit beside paintings of
others within Beaton’s glamorous circle.
http://www.npg.org.uk
The Candlelight Club lives up to its name,
with a monthly night of cocktails, cabaret and
swing bands, all set in a candle-lit speakeasy
at a secret London location
(ticket holders fi nd out
two days beforehand).
Adherence to the
dandies-and-fl appers
dress code adds to the
Prohibition atmosphere.
http://www.thecandlelightclub.comThe Palm Court at the
Sheraton Grand London
Park Lane hotel was
ompleted in 1927 and
etains many original Art
Deco features. Sample the
ostalgic Nineteen Twen-Tea
fternoon tea with a ‘1927’
end from Newby Tea or
ait for the clock to strike
9.20 every Wednesday
vening for two hours of live
usic, classic drinks and
atsby-esque glamour.
ww.palmcourtlondon.co.ukwritten that great modernist poem,
The Wasteland, in 1922.
In the theatre, actors like Claude Rains,
Basil Rathbone and Ronald Colman (all
three having served in the same regiment
during the First World War) were matinee
idols in London’s West End. And Ivor
Novello wasn’t just composing musicals but
starring in his first films too, with Alfred
Hitchcock giving him top billing in 1927’s
The Lodger.
The Jazz Age also influenced the world
of more serious music. William Walton,
who had befriended the poets Siegfried
Sassoon and Sacheverell Sitwell at Oxford,
had a notorious success in 1923 with
Façade. Walton was lodging in London with
Sacheverell’s sister Edith at the time and
this avant-garde piece, first performed at
the now-demolished Aeolian Hall on New
Bond Street, consisted of her declaiming
poetry from behind a screen while his
impertinent music was performed by a small
orchestra. Meanwhile, Constant Lambert,
another darling of the 1920s London music
scene, wrote his “secular cantata” The Rio
Grande. This daring piece of symphonic
jazz was not unlike George Gershwin’s
Rhapsody in Blue and featured lyrics
written by Sacheverell Sitwell.
The Roaring Twenties, then, was a
decade that started slowly but eventually
dazzled creatively thanks in part to the
sheer gusto with which people lived life.
In London, it was a time of glamour
and cocktails, of literature and jazz, of
artistic experimentation and geometric
architecture. Sadly, it all came apart in
1929 when New York’s Wall Street Crash
cut short the roaring on both sides of the
Atlantic and ushered in the problematic and
ultimately disastrous 1930s. Nevertheless,
100 years later, it remains a stylish capsule
of London life with much to celebrate. ■Left: London’s Art
Deco Hoover Building
Below: Cecil Beaton’s
1928 photo of “Bright
Young Thing” Paula
Gellibrand, Marquesa
de Casa Maury