Our pick of the month is Brian Lobel’s Cruising for Art, a suspiciously non-Xmas event. If you’re feeling festive try BAC, BGWMC, Duckie’s Copyright Christmas, Drink Shop & Do and much more…read on Scrooge, read on…

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Christmas Cook Up Season @ Battersea Arts Centre | 1st-31stDecember | Various Times | £Various

 BAC presents a delightful festive festival packed with emerging theatre developed on site, including theatre, music, words, food & drink. Our pick of the pops includes: “Bluebeard“ - a dark cabaret fairytale about a nobleman in the habit of murdering his wives; and renegade theatre troupe Little Bulb’s “The Mother of All Goose Parties” – a musical journey/party.

Christmas Open Studios @ Cockpit Arts | 2nd-4th December | Free

  Don’t Argos it! Buy something truly unique from Cockpit Arts’ supremely talented bunch of crafty creatives. Choose from fashion accessories, homewares and much more as you enjoy some lovely food courtesy of Handmade Food, or enter the prize draw to win handmade Christmas decorations made by CA’s talented designers. 

Bethnal Green Working Mens Club Xmas Season @ BGWMC | 3rd-17th December | Various Times | £Various

 Come to the venue where it’s so camp, it’s Christmas all year round! Highlights of their awesome Christmas parties include: Coney Island Christmas Party (inspired by the kookiest car-crash beach resort that is Coney Island N.Y.) on the 3rd December; Dirty Fan Male (based on real letters sent to porn stars) on the 14th December; and the Cream Revue Christmas Party.

Canadian Blast vs Oui Love @ Rich Mix | 5th December | 19:30 | Free

Oui fell in love with ‘Oui Love’ at the Institut Francais, where we bopped insanely to their latest compilation of French future mega-hits. We can’t wait to hear Zooey at RichMix.

Amateur Transplants @ Lyric Theatre | 5th December | 20:00 | £22.50

Ok we admit it, we are totally obsessed with musical comedy – we write about it more than anything else on the site. See some cream-of-the-crop musical comedy at the luscious Lyric Theatre, full of witty puns and laugh out loud mayhem from YouTube stars, Amateur Transplants.

Robyn Hood @ The RVT | 7th & 28th-30th December | Various Times | £8.50

We went to the RVT Panto last year and saw stripping, beautiful rhyming song with Marcus Reeves and trannies. This year we expect nothing less.

Brian Lobel’s Cruising for Art @ Vogue Fabrics | 9th December | 20:00-22:00 | £5

 Unbelievably brilliant and irreverently sleazy event where audience members have to cruise an audacious array of artists in order to gain access to intimate, one on one performances – all over 4 floors of the Vogue Fabrics mansion. The line up for this round includes Bryony Kimmings, Tui’s Nail Bar (Tui is an emerging artist – just 10 years old!), Eirini Kartsaki, Mamoru Iriguchi, Rachel Gomme, Catherine Long, The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein, Timberlina (as Tim Redfern), GraceLes and Owen Parry.

Duckie Copyright Christmas and Duckie Christmas Market @ The Barbican | 10th-30th December | Various Times | £19.99

We are very impressed to see that those fabulous Duckie people have infiltrated the usually-clean Barbican website with falling snow. Pretty! In their latest interactive charade, featuring Scottee & Harrold Offeh, the collective express their dissatisfaction with the commercialism of Christmas. We feel the same! Then, after you’ve got all ruffled by the performance, explore the Duckie Christmas Market for offbeat treats from independent sellers who love a chat.

The Joy of Sketch @ Lyric Theatre | 12th December | 19:30 | £17.50-£38.50

 Sketch comedy is a Loserville favourite genre, and we are happy that Time Out got its thinking cap on and put on this festive frollic with some of the best troupes around. Including Late Night Gimp Fight, Idiots of Ants, The Pajama Men and Two Episodes of Mash.

Bourgeois & Maurice: Fa La La La La @ Soho Theatre | 14th December – 7th January | 21:45 | £10-£15

Christmas cheer not quite grabbed you? Perfect! Come and join LV faves Bourgeois and Maurice for their festive (?) Christmas spectacular. Expect: hilarity, doom mongering and costume changes (we hope!).

The Xmas Starty @ Soho Theatre | 14th-23rd December | Various Times | £15

Soho Theatre says: “The most bizarre office Christmas party you will ever attend.” We say: “Bring it on babycakes!”. Dress up in your frump chic and enjoy the music, passion, laughs, games, dances, prizes and crafting.

Inappropriate Christmas Card Making @ Drink, Shop & Do | 21st December | 20:00ish | Free (well, you have to buy a drink…)

This cute cafe in Kings Cross presents great participatory events including knit-ins, musical bingo and inappropriate Xmas fun. Don’t miss this hidden gem…

Loserville swapped the city for the magical Isle of Wight last weekend, for four days of Bestival japery…

Armed with a snazzy tent, a disposable barbecue, a pack of bratwurst and a tin of spaghetti hoops (with sausages in), the press juggernaut that is Loserville rolled into Robin Hill Country Park to a fanfare of… oh, hang on, getting a bit carried away. We went to Bestival 2011. Here’s Part One of our Bestival Festival Round-up! (And here’s Part 2)

Day 1

We arrived. The tent was a pop-up affair. We’d tested it at Loserville HQ earlier in the week, and it had indeed popped up quite rapidly. It took us about two hours to get it to pop down again.

Never mind, that delightful chore was three days away. We cracked open the bratwurst and got the BBQ up and running, before heading out to explore. NOTE: Do not use fingers to move exceedingly hot German sausages from super-hot barbecue to soft bun. So, yeah, our first task was to go find a plaster for a burnt finger!

Finger plastered, we got stuck into the cider and stumbled across Blancmange (of ‘Living On The Ceiling’ fame: “I’m so tall, I’m so tall…” in the Big Top. Good stuff! We were a bit miffed that we missed The La’s earlier in the day (because we misread the times), so we checked out the press tent (with its snazzy chandelier), and snuck into the VIP, with its waving cats. Lucky slebs.

Day 2

We woke up slightly damp – turns out the Loserville Press Office is only 95% waterproof, and it lets in little droplets of moisture just to keep things interesting.

After polishing off the last of the bratwurst for brekkie, we headed for the Ambient Forest in search of some theatre or poetry or some such. We crashed the end of some yoga-ey meditation, only to find that the performers hadn’t turned up for our first show of the day! Pfft, theatre types, you can never trust them!

Next up was Kyla La Grange in the Psychedelic Worm, who were totally on it and gave a great performance – they even managed not to be distracted by the tw@tted guy painted green who stood right at the front and waved manically at Kyla. Festival gold.

We wanted to see a bit of Ghostpoet on the Red Bull Music Academy stage, but he was bumped to a later slot. Instead, we bummed around (perhaps we went to the bar, who can say) until Brian Wilson was wheeled out onto the main stage to crank out a few Beach Boys classics.

There’s only so much 60s surf-pop that Loserville can take on a Friday afternoon, so we took the opportunity to mooch around the Bollywood and Ballroom fields, and caught an amazing Wall of Death show which scared the sh*t out of us!

Back in the Ambient Forest, we caught ‘Proper Night’, a darkly funny, surreal, fab play from OutHouse Collective, in collaboration with director Dominic McHale. Ace stuff, in a great setting, which kept us guessing right to the end.

The winding paths of the Ambient Forest led us out to the Bandstand (solar powered, no led) in time for Brigitte Aphrodite. We HEART Brigitte! It was an amazing set of quirky, catchy choons, including our favourite about there being f*ck-all to do in Bromley, and a brill cover of The Ronettes’ ‘Be My Baby’. It all culminated in a good ol’ stage invasion, and the crowd loved it! We can’t wait to see Brigitte again.

After a bit of grub and a quick gander at Chromeo on the Main Stage, we scampered up to the Knees Up tent for Underbling & Vow’s time-traveling, singalong celebration of old-fashioned crowd-pleasers like ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’ and ‘My Old Man’.

Then we made sure to catch Loserville favourites Bourgeois & Maurice belt out a few classics (‘Dull People’ and ‘Ritalin’) as well as newer stuff (‘Lizard Men’, ‘C.H.A.O.S.’, and ‘Maurice’s Happy Song’). A perfect way to finish off our first full day at Bestival.

Mindful (yeah, Loserville can be mindful!) of the rammed day we had planned on Saturday, we withdrew to the Loserville Press Office to make notes, eat sweets, and attempt some on-the-job waterproofing.

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Part Two is here, including: the Lorraine Bowen Experience, The Cure, Spam & Beans, Bjork, Village People, PJ Harvey, Wolf Gang, Gay Bingo, and the dawn of the apocalypse (Monday morning!)

 The Bourgeois & Maurice Band

@ Soho Theatre | 1-3 September 2011 | 21:30 | £10

“there’s no better (legal) way to spend an evening in a Soho basement”

We say: Fresh from a summer of festival fun (the fab Apple Cart Festival amongst many), Bourgeois & Maurice have taken the next logical step toward world-conquering, stadium-filling super stardom… they’ve only gone and got themselves a band!

Loserville favourites Bourgeois & Maurice are back for a short one-off series of gigs at the Soho Theatre, with ace new songs and a couple of bandmates thrown in. We were stage-adjacent for the opening night, as Georgeois Bourgeois and Maurice Maurice stormed through a set of new classics and old favourites.

It’s totally worth catching B&M with their band – old songs like Ritalin, Tolerance, and Tax Me Baby are given the rock’n'roll, drums and guitar treatment, and the new songs don’t disappoint (but then, we knew they wouldn’t).

They say: “In the past four years award-winning alt-cabaret duo Bourgeois & Maurice have released two critically-ignored albums, performed at Tiger Tiger in Croydon and been heralded by the Guardian as ‘basically a singing duo’. They return to Soho Theatre to celebrate these astonishing accomplishments with a one-off series of ‘gigs’ in which the ethically-bankrupt siblings are joined onstage by a band.”

The Apple Cart Festival

@ Victoria Park, Sunday 7th August 2011 – as featured in our August To Do List

“Our favourite London festival of the summer.”

Patrick Wolf

@ The Apple Cart Festival

“Melt into a pool of Wolf-induced goo.”

Bourgeois & Maurice

@ The Apple Cart Festival

“We had to be there. In the front row. Like stalkers.”

The Guardian, The Independent, Q Magazine, NME… Loserville is truly worthy of standing in a field next to any of them. And so we proved at the The Apple Cart Festival, a new music/comedy/cabaret/magic (?) celebration which took over leafy Victoria Park for one day only.

That’s right – Loserville is proper media. If you don’t believe us, check out the pic to the left – PROOF!

Apple Cart promised to be “a new boutique day out boasting everything from Mercury winning musicians, award garnering comedians, conjuring Magic Circle members, interactive art happenings, family friendly village fete fun plus gourmet food to feast on and real ale to sup”. Feeling a responsibility to maintain journalistic integrity, we made sure to test all of these claims (particularly the last two).

The whole day was a great success as far as we could see – OK, we needed the use of a battered old umbrella a few times, but there was so much amazingness to distract us from the occasional downpour: great food at the Venn Street Market (the burgers were especially amazing), design-your-own-cover classics on sale in the book tent, tasty tipples courtesy of Jeremiah Weed… and that’s before we even mention the main stages!

The music line up included Saint Etienne, Patrick Wolf, Tim Minchin and Badly Drawn Boy, whilst the cabaret tent played host to Chilly Gonzales, Bourgeois & Maurice and Marawa. Elsewhere, there were stand-up routines, DJ sets and folk-ery aplenty – what more could you want on a Sunday afternoon?

Apple Cart definitely lived up to it’s promise – Loserville has grown a little wary of some of the London park-based festivals just lately, but this one deserves every success. It really is a festival for all the family, but without pulling punches or compromising too much. A great line up, alongside great facilities and a laid back atmosphere made Apple Cart our favourite London festival of the summer. BRING ON 2012!

We’ve picked out a couple of our favourite acts from the festival below…

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Patrick Wolf took to the stage mid-afternoon in a sexy, all-red ensemble, determined to banish the rain with his soaring vocals and his viola/piano/harp/instrument of choice.

We can’t quite get our heads around the fact that it’s 8 years since Lycanthropy, Patrick’s debut album, and 4 years since we first bounced around to The Magic Position.

It still feels fresh though! Patrick thrusts and strides across the stage, belying his 28 years (ha!) and takes the crowd along with him. It took every ounce of our journalistic integrity not to just melt into a pool of Wolf-induced goo (ahem) as he finished the set with ‘The Magic Position’, pausing half way to thank a fan for inspiring the set with some beautiful dancing. Oh Patrick, you sweetie.

Patrick Wolf’s 5th Album, Lupercalia, was released in May. He’s playing Leeds & Reading Festivals later in August, and Bestival in September.

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Bourgeois & Maurice owned the cabaret stage. Simple as.

Bona fide Loserville favourites, Bourgeois & Maurice never let us down, and when we saw that they were on the bill for The Apple Cart Festival, we knew we had to be there. In the front row. Like stalkers.

Set highlights included credit-crunch lament ‘Can’t Live in London’ and ‘Ritalin’ from first album Musical Couture; ‘Retro’ and the insanely catchy ‘Out Outfit You’ from latest album Shedding Skin; and the set-closing update of Des’ree’s 90s classic ’Life’ (of “I don’t want to see a ghost/It’s a sight that I fear most/I’d rather have a piece of toast” fame!).

We love to see new audiences experiencing Bourgeois & Maurice for the first time, and although there were definitely quite a few fans in the crowd, the first-timers seemed to love it just as much as us (and we love it a bit too much!).

Both first album Musical Couture and second album Shedding Skin are available to buy from all good Bourgeois & Maurice websites (i.e www.bourgeoisandmaurice.co.uk). You can also catch them live at ‘cabaret grand spectacular’ La Reve at Café de Paris, 12th August.

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Merry May to all of you folks, not just because it’s this writer’s 25th Birthday and he’s off to Eurovision to bring you all the action…

Reykjavik | 10-14 May | 7.30pm | The Albany, Deptford

Spooky, immersive, innovative theatre experience for just 25 audience members at a time in a journey of discovery through the realms of neuroscience…sounds all very Twin Peaks to me.
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BAC Scratch Nights | Various dates and times | BAC, Lavender Hill

Watch the hottest upcoming theatre companies do their stuff miles ahead of the general public and it’s pay what you can. But be sure to book a ticket online! Our highlight is the delightful ‘Koe‘ by the offbeat and dreamy Hey Ho Ha company, we hope to see you there on Saturday 7th.

Time Out presents Alternative Eurovision | 14 May | Udderbelly, Southbank Centre

We went last year and had a riot, last years winners Bourgeois & Maurice are back with a stonking piss take of the boy/man band phenomenon as well as trannytastic La John Joseph & Scottee and the offbeat cheekiness of Ginger & Black…see below for video of them…

Museums at Night | 13-15 May | Various Locations

We like raving in museums when we should have been kicked out, our highlights are Dr Johnson’s House, The Government Art Collection and our favourite secret London museum, The Old Operating Theatre as they do a superbly scary event “Surgery by Gaslight”.

Accidental Festival | 19-22 May | Roundhouse, Camden

Central School of Speech and Drama’s irreverent festival which is cheap, chic and features cabaret, cutting edge theatre, short films and a new performance by wacky performance veterans Forced Entertainment.

And if you fancy a weekend away…try jetting off on the National Express for just £2 the Brighton Festival Fringe…discover some great acts including wonderful free street theatre and intimate cabaret in the new Playgroup venue.

We previewed the show a little while back, and were lucky enough to catch them at the end of last week. Now there are just three more chances to catch Bourgeois & Maurice at the Lilian Baylis Studio @ Sadler’s Wells for their hit show Can’t Dance.

It genuinely is 75 minutes of fun. It’s not giving anything away to say that this is not a dance show. Swan Lake it ain’t. Nutcracker? Maybe for one unsuspecting gent plucked from the audience.

B&M seamlessly combine a few old favourites with punchy, brand new tunes, simultaneously taking pot shots at the world of dance and the wider world outside. No one and nothing is safe: from George Osborne and Tory economic policy, to the pitfalls of lust-at-first-sight.

Between songs and skits, B&M offer us a behind the scenes glimpse of their ‘training’ for this run, as video footage reveals the pair attempting ballet lessons, and being told to work harder by a cartoon Darcy Bussell. Of course.

So, you’ve got until December 23rd to catch them, and we can’t think of any better way of escaping London’s icy roads and heaving high streets.

You’ve been told.

Losers, You’re Not Alone!

Starting Tuesday and running until December 23rd, friends of Loserville Bourgeois & Maurice are rocking Sadler’s Wells with what promises to be a pretty fantastically ace Christmas run – new show, Can’t Dance.

They say: “With the nation in the grip of television-fuelled dance fever, the duo have been left with no choice but to show the world just how spectacularly well they Can’t Dance. Mixing laugh-out-loud original songs, film projection and an abundance of astonishing outfits, this brand new show is at once outrageously bizarre and unexpectedly human.”

We say: It’s almost certainly going to be awesome! Whack on your two left shoes and tap along in your own time – B&M NEVER disappoint!

14.09.09 – Welcome to our weekly Monday guide to Loser Life…it’s a bumper first edition…become our fan on Facebook to get exclusive offers and more…

In Short: a) Subo returns b) Aqua gig f*ck yeah! c) Grand Vintage Ball d) Sounds inc. free Metronomy mp3  e) Zoe Griffin Party animal & lifestyle guru (our new God) f) Credit Crunchers (aka shops) g) Le Grand Macabre (opera, God I know! Let’s do it put ur aria into it) h) Sounds Like Teen Spirit

a) SUBO she comes with ALBUM! her website makes us cry milky tears, the rolling landscapes, the scarf…what more could any discerning human want. Watch her hilariously professional intro vid here. She’s on Radio 2 on Monday 14/09/09. Her web site lovingly produced by Simon Cowell’s anus is so slow to load, coz loadsa Americ*nts are trying to access it to wank over her version of Wild Horses which is apparently #1 song requested at funerals.

b) Aqua‘s first (according to press, not my opinion) UK appearance in batty heaven G-A-Y.  Featuring all of the greatest hits album including Candyman, Doctor Jones, Cartoon Heroes and the unerrably awesome Barbie song. The stage show will be wkd and gays will scream, mmmm. Check out their new video… featuring the lyric of the century…’back when Michael Jackson’s skin was black’ Back to the 80s – New Aqua Single…

…c) The Grand Vintage Ball & Vintage Attire Pageant
The first ever Grand Vintage Ball will be a night of eclectic music from the 1920s-80s, mindboggling feats of derring-do, and decadence.Whilst the powdered preening pansies fight it out at London Fashion week, to see styles plundered from the past, the event will show the real sartorial creativity and design London has to offer. Just like music sampling, which involves rifling through the past with scant regard for periods, styles and eras, the ball will be a non purist homage to the past.

Held in the sumptuous environs of the Rivoli Ballroom in Brockley, South East London, the night is the perfect opportunity for the Retrorati and the Sartorial Intelligentsia to don their best vintage and retro outfits and enter the ultimate Vintage Attire Pageant, where they can be crowned Best In Show with loads of categories including the fabulously titled ‘Dictator’s Wife’.

Comperes on the night will be the fabulous musical duo Bourgeois and Maurice ‘Cabaret never looked so…wrong.’

d) Sounds we like to hum and bop a long to, like penguins.

Gaggle (Pictured) Choir madness from laptop sensation featuring old women rapping in african tribal wear about loving cigarettes…listen here

Metronomy free download of jazzy new song, still can’t believe there’s now a girl in it though

Boy Crisis – Dressed to Digress – catchy choon…one for the mums out there.

The Guild - Do you want to date my avatar? If you’ve ever wanted to date an avatar. If you don’t know what that is you’re such a noob! ROFL!

e) Zoe Griffin (blog) Ever since my ‘cool’ non loser friend recommended this style guru and it-girl, I’ve been pretty unhealthily obsessed. Check her out, her sister’s make up tips are unbeatable and she has a super celeb spotter twitter app which tracks slebs including Gok Wan being in Greenwich Market…

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Joanna Griffin Make-Up- Mascara from Zoe Griffin on Vimeo.

f) Credit crunchers of this week include… Hunky Dory Vintage, a beautiful old shop stuffed full of treats on Brick Lane, don’t worry losers, it’s not Brick Lane and also the most amazing 90s and oddities shop of Philip Normal’s Happy Shack

g) Le Grand Macabre @ Coliseum Great show, bit freaky, cheap tickets, get your opera spex out. Cheap tickets on FB.

h) Sounds Like Teen Spirit is out today, which is a docukiddimentary telling the story of 6 Junior Eurovision hopefuls, tears, smiles and the best soundtrack ever including all the kids’ songs and the joyous Sebastian Tellier. Click the pic to get the DVD cheap. Buy it now!

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If you can’t wait for the next Loser List we like totally cheat and put some on Facebook, become our fan and know all.

ps. If you watch that dreaded telly box watch Warship on 5, it’s amazing Episode 2 is on five.tv and is pretty much tattoed men getting filthy. Hot.

from Loserville with love x

also Ben Lerman will be featured in the next Loser List and if you have any suggestions please email ru@loserville.tv or hit us up on Facebook asap.