A Day Out in London – The Mall Galleries, Royal Society of Portrait Painters 2026 Exhibition

On May 19, 2026 By samanthaIn GOING OUTLeave a comment

I have often walked past the Mall Galleries but never been inside so was delighted when a friend suggested we visit. Tickets to the Royal Society of Portrait Painters 2026 Exhibition were just seven pounds which was an absolute bargain. The galleries are a few minutes walk from Charing Cross. We were so fortunate that our arrival coincided exactly with the parade for the State Opening of Parliament. We had the best view from the front looking down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace, the rain was pouring and we were absolutely freezing but there was such a happy atmosphere with the band playing. It was a bit surreal to see a carriage go by with the royal mace sticking out of it like a delivery truck with an ironing board hanging out of the window.

Much of the work at the gallery is for sale, if I had a spare five thousand pounds I would have loved to have bought Tess is Reading (below)by David Orrin Smith or even commissioned him to paint a portrait of my own daughter. The Royal Society of Portrait Painters does offer a commission service

There were portraits of so many different styles and mediums on display including many by Chinese artists from Shengxinyu Art, in fact these were some of my favourites. The pieces on display are selected by a jury of artists. Some have won the 2026 award Royal Society of Portrait Painters awards.

Below is a portrait of Professor Ranee Thakar by Alastair Adams. Initially I thought this was a photograph, the detail is incredible.

Below: Ladyswood by Richard Foster. How wonderful to have a family portrait like this. I am not sure who is the mother and who is the daughter though.

Below: Self-Portrait in Lockdown by Paul Newton, painted by the artist during the Covid epidemic he looks thoughtful and rather sad.

Below: The Distance – also known as Departure for Malta by Jing An Look at the ay the silver bangles are painted, it is incredibly detailed.

I took lots of photos as my dad is actually a very accomplished painter, of landscapes rather than portraits and I knew he’d be interested to see the different works.

If I am every in a position to invest in some art the Mall Galleries would be my first stop, you can view what they have for sale on their website. I have signed up to be notified of future exhibitions at the Mall Galleries and am already looking forward to my next visit.

Thank you for reading

Samantha

A Day Out in London – Titanique at The Criterion Theatre

On May 11, 2026May 19, 2026 By samanthaIn GOING OUTLeave a comment

I had been searching for a show to go and see, I looked through the various “Things To Do In London” websites but wasn’t feeling very inspired and so many tickets are now over two hundred pounds. A friend said she had loved Titanique, showing at The Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus. I booked tickets for myself and a friend costing about £110 each. Before heading over to the theatre we had dinner at our favourite Covent Garden restaurant Buns and Buns. It always feels lovely to be in this part of London on a warm evening.

Titanique is a musical spoof of James Cameron’s 1998 blockbuster Titanic based on the fated 1912 maiden voyage where approximately fifteen hundred poor souls lost their lives including my great great uncle, Alfred Maytum who was one of the butchers on board. I am always a bit unsure about the ethics of comedy based on tragedy but I supposed over one hundred years have passed and it was an accident rather that an act of war or something worse.

The gist of the show is that Celine Dion visits a Titanic exhibition and reveals that she was on board. This of course is impossible as she was born in 1968 as the other visitors point out. She insists she was a passenger on the vessel and witness to the romance between Jack and Rose. She then proceeds to enthusiastically sing her greatest hits. The whole premise is, quite frankly, delightfully bonkers. Celine is currently played by Astrid Harris. Harris is much more statuesque than Dion but, facially she looks uncannily similar and the wig designer got the hair spot-on. Harris has an amazing voice and something about the exaggerated, raunchy way she moves just made me laugh so much. My friend and I were probably the only straight people in the audience and the young man next to me was so friendly during the interval asking me what my favourite Celine Dion songs are, what other musicals I have seen etc. He recommended Hades Town. It was his and his boyfriend’s third time of seeing Titanique and they were laughing so much it was really quite infectious.

The iceberg is personified in the show by Ryan Carter. For some inexplicable reason The Iceberg is also Tina Turner with blue hair and Carter belts out “River Deep-Mountain High” in a glittery mini-dress. By this point I really was wondering if I had accidently ingested some psychedelic substance.

My friend didn’t enjoy the show so much describing it as a being pantomime-like and she isn’t really wrong. Rose’s mother was the dame played by Carl Mullaney. After a while it did all just start to feel a bit absurd. There are some genuinely hilarious moments, the mocking of Jack’s drawing skills, Rose’s mother being so broke that she had to shoot pigeons in Trafalgar Square to decorate her hat. The Heart of the Ocean necklace, famously featured in the film, is ridiculously huge in the show and Cal boasts that he bought it at Claire’s Accessories. I see that you can actually buy a copy of this necklace for seven pounds on Amazon!

I can see why Titanique has a cult following a little like The Rocky Horrow Show. I enjoyed it, laughed a lot but once was enough.

Thank you for reading

Samantha

A Day Out in London – The Banksy Limitless Exhibition

On May 2, 2026 By samanthaIn GOING OUTLeave a comment

I didn’t know a great deal about Banksy before visiting this Banksy Limitless exhibition so really was not sure what to expect. It is located near South Kensington tube station, and as luck would have it, a tube strike was announced for the day we had booked our tickets. Fortunately there were still some District line trains running and we managed to squeeze on and arrive on time. The outside of the building did not look very promising and I wondered if we had wasted our £26 ticket price- we hadn’t, the exhibition is amazing and so different to anything I have seen before.

What I did know is that Banksy is a street artist, his artwork tends to be subversive and that he is anonymous . Whenever a new painting of his appears on the side of a building it is reported in the press alongside speculation as to his identity. Apparently the most likely candidate is an artist from Bristol, Robin Gunningham. I had no idea that Banksy had produced such a large and varied volume of work or that he is a prominent social campaigner who actually puts his money where his mouth is (as my mum would say) all of his work is some sort of social commentary . Just this week a statue of a pompous looking man being blinded by a flag has appeared in Waterloo Place. Banksy has claimed responsibility and Westminster council seem thrilled.

Probably the most famous work of Bansky’s is the stencilled graffiti image There Is Always Hope, sometimes referred to as Girl With Balloon. It is worth visiting the exhibition just to find out what happened when this work was sold at Sothebys. There is a variation of this painting on display, a little girl holding a heart shaped buoyancy aid, for the people who drown making illegal crossings across the channel. Banksy has even bought a French lifeboat to help these people. There is a model of passengers sitting on a packed dinghy and a claim that distress calls relating to these crossings are deliberately ignored.

As well as being a talented artist Banksy is a master of puns. There is a huge painting on display of apes in the House of Commons called Devolved Parliament. A picture of Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz is captioned “I don’t think we’re on canvas anymore…” His take on Disney land, a whole theme park installation is titled Dismaland. The cover photo shows a huge Little Mermaid display. Inside there is a killer whale with its trainer holding a hoop for it to dive through into a tiny blow-up paddling pool.

There is so much to see at this exhibition including details of his collaboration with Blur for their Think Tank album artwork . There is a whole mock up of a Tube station named Prakadilly Circus complete with advertisements. One features a photo of Mother Theresa with the caption “I learnt a valuable lesson from this woman, moisturise every day”. There is a piece of art titled Napalm showing the iconic 1972 image of nine year old Vietnamese girl Phan Thi Kim Phúc, terribly burned, running naked with her arms out at her side. In Banksy’s work she is flanked by Ronald McDonald and Mickey Mouse who both look horrifyingly cheerful.