How I use AI tools while travelling

~ Shakeel Hashim ~ Leave a comment

As someone who goes on ~15 international trips a year, I am always looking for things to improve how I travel. In the past year or so, AI tools have become a big help. Here’s how I use them.

Planning

I have a “Travel Companion” project set up in ChatGPT. Here are the (unfortunately very pretentious) project instructions, which were themselves AI-generated after I gave a model a bunch of my travel writing).

I’m an extremely well-traveled, discerning traveler (42+ countries with week+ stays) who values authentic, high-quality experiences. When making recommendations:


Food: I have similar tastes to Tyler Cowen – I appreciate ethnic cuisines, hole-in-the-wall gems, and authentic regional specialties that showcase local ingredients and techniques. I want places offering things unique to that destination. Value matters, but I’m willing to pay for genuine quality. Skip generic “good” restaurants – I want what I can’t get in London.


Culture: I’m passionate about art, architecture, and museums, with particular interest in contemporary art and exhibitions that use space creatively. I prefer places with historical context and often want to understand how a place got to be the way it is – its history and economic development. Focus on what’s genuinely world-class or one-of-a-kind in that location.


Travel style: I research thoroughly, book ahead, and appreciate efficient transport. I seek out excellent independent bookshops everywhere. I’m comfortable with both luxury and budget options (though no hostels) and willing to pay for comfort and to save time. I prefer authentic neighborhood experiences over tourist areas.


Unique experiences I value: I’m drawn to unusual, immersive experiences like Dennis Severs House, Musée Mécanique, Rothko Room, or The New York Earth Room – places that are labors of love, demonstrate obsessive dedication to a craft, or offer genuinely transformative spatial experiences you can’t find elsewhere.


Key principle: I’m looking for experiences unique to that place vs London. Don’t recommend good Indian food in NYC or impressive general art museums unless they’re truly world-class or one-of-a-kind – I want what I can’t get at home.


Avoid: Tourist traps, experiences I could have in London, overly commercialized attractions, Instagram-focused spots over substance.


What I value most: Discovering genuinely local and unique experiences, learning something new about a place’s history and development, finding places that demonstrate real expertise, and maximizing the uniqueness of each destination.

This allows me to say “I’m going to X place for a few days, what should I do” and get much better recommendations than the usual not-very-good travel blogs. They’re still not great — I’m sure the prompt could be much better — but they’re a good start. I think the “avoid experiences I could have in London” part is doing a lot of work to filter out stuff that’s good, but not the best use of my limited time in a place.

It’s also fairly useful at directly comparing things — in Mexico City, for instance, I asked it to list all the places with Diego Rivera murals and recommend one that I had to see. Most travel blogs are too completist; it’s helpful to have a filter.

The project’s also useful for dumping in a rough itinerary, asking if it makes sense, and suggesting tweaks. With countries where I’m going to be travelling around a lot, it’s helpful to have it point out that travel between A and C is easier than A and B, for instance.

Before going, or while on the plane, I’ll ask ChatGPT or Claude for detailed-ish history of the place I’m visiting to help me quickly get up to speed. It’s nice to arrive having a bare minimum knowledge of that.

On the trip

ChatGPT Voice Mode has become an indispensable companion in museums with minimal/bad English translations. You can just point your phone at a sign, ask it to translate it, and then it will read you a translation while you look at the object. You can then also ask follow up questions, and generally use it to fill in gaps in your knowledge about the history and context of the objects. It’s as close as it gets to having a private tour guide without actually paying for one. I’ve used this in Indonesia and Mexico so far, and it’s been excellent in both cases, significantly improving my understanding of what I’m seeing. (The only problem is the too-short usage limit.)

The new AirPods Live Translate feature is also very impressive. In Mexico, I was lurking by a Spanish-speaking tour group looking at Diego Rivera murals. I wanted to know what the guide was saying, so I turned on Live Translate, and was instantly hearing a very good quality live translation of her tour. It was very useful! I’m less convinced about the utility of this feature in conversations, but in a presentation context it works very well. I can see myself using it at the theatre or cinema, too.

The Apple Translate app is pretty good, if a little slow. Two other iOS features that are quite useful for communication: after screenshotting something, there’s an option to translate the screen, which is helpful for foreign-language WhatsApp convos (the built-in WhatsApp translation is very glitchy, in my experience). And within WhatsApp or any other app, you can type in English, select the text, hit “Translate” from the format options and then “Replace text with translation”. Very helpful!

Deep Research is also useful when I come across something obscure I can’t quite explain and want to know more about — such as why it took so long for the new highway to be built between Oaxaca and Puerto Escondido. The fact that these models can search local-language news sources and translate/summarize them for me is particularly useful.

What they’re not good for

They’re still not particularly good at telling you what’s happening on a given day in the city you’re visiting, though they’re getting better. (I got a couple of good repertory cinema listings last time I was in the Bay.) They’re also just generally a bit too slow, and relying on good internet is an issue (though increasingly less so, especially if you use an eSIM or have a plan with unlimited 5G roaming, as I do). And their taste isn’t quite there yet, though it’s vastly better than almost any travel blog, publication, or even personal recommendations from (most) people.

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews

~ Shakeel Hashim ~ Leave a comment

I spent 3.5 days at the Edinburgh festivals last week, seeing 20 shows and one exhibition. Here’s what I thought.

My rubric for these, and all, reviews is as follows:

5* = masterpiece
4.5* = near perfect
4* = great
3.5* = very good
3* = good
2.5* = fine
2* = not good
1.5* = bad
1* = very bad
0.5* = awful
0* = ought not exist

Tom at the Farm — 4.5*
If you trimmed 15 minutes from the penultimate act, this would be perfect. An impeccably performed and directed piece of theatre, sickeningly intense and very powerful. It’s innovative and experimental, but not for the sake of it — everything about it works to form this blistering Brazilian drama about sexuality, repression, and guilt. Unmissable.

A Gambler’s Guide to Dying — 4.5*
This was properly good – a stunning performance from Gary McNair, who has written a gripping story about family, addiction, death, and perseverance that perfectly balances humour and sentimentality. A true edge-of-your-seat show — highly recommended.

Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years — 4.5*
One of the best exhibitions I’ve seen in a long time, from an artist I’ve been shamefully ignorant of. Goldworthy’s large-scale installations are stunning and deeply moving, and the way he uses natural materials is truly magical. Some of the works in this exhibition will stick with me forever, I think; I feel quite lucky to have seen it.

Cat Cohen: Broad Strokes — 4*
A return to form for Cohen, after the slightly disappointing Come For Me. Clever and incisive comedy that’s about her having a stroke, but is somehow also very relatable. And it’s all carried by Cohen’s exceptional stage presence.

Garry Starr: Classic Penguins — 4*
This show is obviously not for everyone: it features a completely naked man humorously acting out various Penguin novels. But if you can get past that, it’s a wonderfully silly show, with some very clever gags and a lot of unforgettable moments.

Kanpur: 1857 — 4*
A very bleak show about one of the darkest periods in British India, with depressing relevance to Israel/Gaza today. Great performances, a surprisingly nuanced script, and gorgeous tabla playing made for an all-round solid show.

Daniel Kitson- Please Note: This is not a Bargain — 4*
It’s Kitson rambling and doing crowdwork for 90 minutes. What’s not to love?

Urooj Ashfaq — 3.5*
Very funny, and quite educational — I learnt a lot about Indian attitudes to things! I think to be exceptional it needs a bit more of an overarching structure, but still a very fun hour.

Undersigned — 3.5*
I’d heard exceptional things about this 1:1 show, so was a little disappointed by the reality — but it was still a very good and very memorable experience, which I’ll be thinking about for some time. Impossible to describe without spoilers — and it’s sold out anyway, so I’ll leave this here.

Jacqueline Novak — 3.5*
An extremely chaotic show; hard to tell if that’s intentional or it was just very work-in-progress. Has some truly excellent moments, and I broadly enjoyed the chaotic energy, but it didn’t quite work — it needed tightening, I think.

Wild Thing — 3*
Starts off as a comedy about silly animal names, ends up as a devastating critique of how we treat nature. Not sure this was quite as good as Vigil — the VR bit needs a bit of work, I think — but definitely going to stay with me.

Kirsty Mann: Corpse (WIP) — 3*
A well-told ghost story interspersed with plenty of jokes. Mann’s a good and engaging storyteller, and you’ll certainly have a good time; it just didn’t leave much of a mark on me.

Stamptown — 3*
Still a raucous, fun time, but it didn’t hit in the same fever-dream way that last year’s did — I think we were slightly unlucky with the acts on the night we went, but the show as a whole might also be suffering from the smaller venue. Not nearly enough Jack Tucker this year, either.

The Ceremony — 3*
I knew nothing about this going in, which I recommend — the whole experience was a delightful surprise. It didn’t blow me away, but there were some moments that really did connect with me, and it’s hard to think of a show that more expertly captures the magic of an audience.

Eulogy — 3*
A rewatch for me, having last seen it at the Fringe in 2021. I liked it less this time round, but I did enjoy just how disorienting it was — it felt like being in a nightmare, which is no bad thing.

Journey to the West — 3*
A short and sweet immersive show, nominally about immigration. In reality, the narrative didn’t come through particularly well, but it’s all very well-executed technically — very clever movement, paired with sound design that rivals Darkfield.

Make It Happen — 2.5*
Oh how far James Graham has fallen. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it’s just so mundane. Extremely predictable in its narrative structure, script, and direction; trying way too hard to be ‘experimental’ but not actually doing anything interesting; and oh-so-preachy and heavy-handed. A shame, because there are good stories to be told about the financial crisis, and Brian Cox is obviously excellent (though a little underutilised). The crowd lapped this up, but I was bored.
(Technically an EIF show, not Fringe.)

Taiwan Season: Dazed and Confused — 2.5*
I wanted more from this. Lin Lu-Chieh’s clearly a talented magician, but the tricks in this are almost too understated — and there’s too much time spent on his charming, but ultimately less exciting, life story. It’s a sincere and heartwarming piece, but wasn’t quite what I wanted.

My Name is Rachel Corrie — 2.5*
The subject matter of this play is what gives it all its power. A young American woman went to Palestine and was killed by the IDF; this play is a monologue based on her diaries and emails. Unfortunately, the play itself is baggy, and the performance in this particular production isn’t strong enough to carry the material. Infuriating, on multiple levels.

Enjoy Your Meal — 2.5*
An immersive show set in a kitchen, this is a comedy show where you are occasionally served not-very-good food. It’s very funny, at points, but lacks structure — it needs to escalate a lot more than it does. It’s novel, and I’d bet on Cory Cavin doing some great stuff in future, but this didn’t quite work.

Hamlet: Wakefulness — 1*
Even just thinking about this makes me angry. Completely fails to live up to its description of “an exploration into the origins of Hamlet” or “pagan ritual”. Instead, it’s an incoherent choral adaptation of Hamlet, with a cast that can sing beautifully but can’t act at all, and a baffling incest subplot jammed in for good measure. It’s impossible to follow, and certainly not worth staying up till midnight for. Skip, at all costs.

66 good things from 2024

~ Shakeel Hashim ~ Leave a comment

I’ve written up my favourite movies, books and theatre from 2024, but here’s a dump of everything else I enjoyed, in roughly chronological order.

  1. The stunning architecture of the Alcázar, Seville
  2. Tapas at Eslava, Seville
  3. Antony Gormley, White Cube, London
  4. Parfums d’Orient, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris
  5. Mark Rothko, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris — possibly the best exhibition I’ve ever seen?
  6. Salt & pepper Dungeness crab at R&G Lounge, San Francisco
  7. Riding a Waymo, San Francisco
  8. Giant redwoods, Santa Cruz
  9. The aquarium at California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco
  10. Seeing the Northern Lights on a return flight from San Francisco to London
  11. A custom made LEGO minifigure of me
  12. A Palestinian art exhibition at Darat Al Funun, Amman
  13. Learning woodturning
  14. Ustad Noor Baksh, Southbank Centre, London
  15. Getting a Curzon Cult membership
  16. The Art Institute, Chicago
  17. Watching the eclipse while eating Culver’s, Indianapolis
  18. The Tiffany dome at Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago
  19. Architecture boat tour, Chicago
  20. Listening to The Dark Knight soundtrack while driving down Lower Wacker, Chicago
  21. Buying an inflatable boat to use on the canal
  22. Rothko Chapel concert, Southbank Centre
  23. My friend’s very good exhibition Paper Cuts, Peltz Gallery
  24. Taylor Swift, La Défense Arena, Paris
  25. The windows at Sainte-Chapelle, Paris
  26. Monet’s waterlilies at Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris
  27. Lunch at Oktobre, Paris
  28. Olivia Rodrigo, O2 Arena, London
  29. Burgers at the Chuck’s popup, Carousel, London
  30. Sampha, Justice, Mdou Moctar, Ustad Noor Baksh, Rimski’s Yard, and a million other things, Glastonbury
  31. The unbelievable House of Uncle Cornelius escape room, Geneva
  32. Dinner at Opheem, Birmingham
  33. My friend’s two beautiful weddings, London and Mysore
  34. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
  35. Art of Noise, SFMOMA, San Francisco
  36. Musée Mecanique, San Francisco
  37. Half Price Books, Berkeley
  38. Tavares Strachan, Hayward Gallery, London
  39. The flower market, Bangalore
  40. Museum of Art and Photography, Bangalore
  41. Karavalli, Bangalore
  42. Blossom Book House, Bangalore
  43. Vijay Vitthala Temple, Hampi
  44. All the monkeys, Hampi
  45. Royal Enclosure, Hampi
  46. Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace, Srirangapatna
  47. Dosas at Old Original Hotel Vinayaka Mylari, Mysore
  48. Searching for shells on the beach, Bekal
  49. Lunch at Quality Wines, London
  50. Sunsets, London
  51. Philip Glass Ensemble, Barbican, London
  52. Rug tufting, London
  53. Takeaway sushi from Haseya, Ealing
  54. Learning how to draw Islamic geometry, Harrow
  55. Classical Indian music workshop, Barbican, London
  56. Watching people dangerously set off fireworks, Shoreditch Park, London
  57. The Silk Roads exhibition, British Museum, London
  58. Making Nick Bramham’s tuna melt recipe
  59. The Electric Dreams exhibition, Tate Modern, London
  60. Humongous dinosaur skeletons at Museo Paleontológico, Trelew
  61. All the penguins, Punta Tombo
  62. Watching ice fall off a glacier, Perito Moreno
  63. Hiking Laguna de Los Tres, El Chalten
  64. The architecture of Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires
  65. Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires
  66. Dinner at Roux, Buenos Aires

Best of 2024: Movies

~ Shakeel Hashim ~ Leave a comment

I got a Curzon subscription this year, which in effect meant I could go to the cinema as much as I wanted without thinking about the cost. This was an excellent decision, and meant I saw much more than normal. Of the 72 films I saw, here are my favourites.

New releases

Best of the year for me is a tie between three films. Challengers was an absolute riot — I watched it twice in cinemas, and I’ve not stopped thinking about that incredible final scene since. Megalopolis is equally seared into my brain — a truly one-of-a-kind spectacle, a rare example these days of a single artist’s unadulterated and uncompromising vision. And Twisters in 4DX was a proper Going To The Movies experience: at the time, I called it “the experience of a lifetime”, and I stand by that six months later.

From the more conventional “best films” lists, Zone of Interest was probably the best — a truly sickening watch. The Holdovers was the kind of film I normally hate, but I enjoyed it very much. Poor Things was pretty good. And Civil War was, as I’ve said before, a much more politically interesting film than people gave it credit for. And I enjoyed Dune: Part Two a lot at the time, but it’s not stuck with me the way the first one did. Perhaps I’m due another rewatch.

Also enjoyed: Anora, All We Imagine As Light, Perfect Days, How To Have Sex, The Iron Claw, Monster, Hoard, La Chimera, Hit Man, Kinds of Kindness, September Says, Crocodile Tears, Santosh, Queer

Underwhelmed: The Boy and the Heron, Fungi: Web of Life, American Fiction, Evil Does Not Exist, Love Lies Bleeding, Furiosa, The Beast, Sleep, The Substance, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, Endurance, The Wolves Always Come At Night, Architecton, Small Things Like These, Conclave, Wicked

New to me

I watched lots of excellent older films last year, too. The standout was probably The Red Shoes, which is a truly incredible film. Cléo from 5 to 7, Paris, Texas, and Days of Heaven are all wonderful, too. On the horror side, I very much enjoyed Psycho, Carrie, and The Wicker Man. Rear Window and Blue Velvet, too. Hoop Dreams is one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen. And Past Lives was a great new-old movie.

Also enjoyed: The Witch, Jodorowsky’s Dune, The Searchers, The Funhouse, Room 666, Mad Max 2, Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition, Mishima, Nosferatu, Hero, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood

Underwhelmed: Galliano: High and Low, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Artificial Intelligence, Eraserhead

Rewatches

I was lucky enough to rewatch 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dune: Part One, and Interstellar at the BFI IMAX this year. All were excellent, obviously. At home, I enjoyed rewatching Four Lions, The Terminator, and Hereditary. Not so much The Phantom Menace or I, Robot, though.

Best of 2024: Theatre

~ Shakeel Hashim ~ Leave a comment

I watched 55 stage shows this year, and think I had a lower “hit” rate than normal, though it’s possible I’m just becoming more jaded. Here’s what I loved — and didn’t.

The undisputed highlight was The Manikins, a thrilling immersive play performed for a single audience member and probably the best thing I’ve seen since The Drowned Man or Roman Tragedies a decade ago. Like those productions, The Manikins was a startling work — one that fundamentally made me rethink what theatre could, or should, be. One of those shows I expect I’ll think about for the rest of my life.

Lots of this year’s best shows were immersive, in fact: Port of Entry, a lovely production in Chicago, has really stuck with me (I described it in May as having “the best immersive set design I’ve ever seen, bar none”), and Bound was the best Punchdrunk-esque production I’ve seen that wasn’t produced by Punchdrunk (read my full review of that and some other plays here).

As far as proscenium shows go, The Portrait of Dorian Gray was great, with a very clever use of video and live camera. The Years was also excellent, with the incredible Romola Garai a standout. And House, an Israeli-French production about a house in West Jerusalem, was a powerful (and devastating) watch — particularly given the timing of staging it this year, of course.

Three more highlights worth mentioning, all comedy: my colleague Cillian introduced me to Stamptown this year, and their late-night Fringe show was a delirious fever dream. MC Jack Tucker was my favourite part of the show, so I made sure to catch his solo show Comedy Stand Up Hour at Soho Theatre — which was an equally hilarious evening. But my Fringe highlight was Furiozo: Man Looking for Trouble, a surprisingly poignant clown show about toxic masculinity which was, somehow, also very funny.

Also great, in rough preference order: King Lear, The Lehman Trilogy (still excellent on my fourth viewing), The Hills of California, Mnemonic, Bluets, People Places and Things, The Other Place, The Importance of Being Earnest, Dr Strangelove, Alfie Brown: Open Hearted Human Enquiry, Macbeth (David Tennant), Look Back In Anger, Giant, Coriolanus, Or What’s Left Of Us, A Tupperware of Ashes, My English Persian Kitchen, Machinal,, Double Feature

Good/decent/fine: An Enemy of the People, Collaborator, Jordan Brookes: Fontanelle, Rhythm and Ruse, La Bayadère, Roots, Salt The Threshold, Where We Meet, The Last Show Before We Die, London Tide, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Ben Schwartz and Friends, The Comeuppance, Hadestown, Nachtland, Player Kings, The Haunting of Hoxton Hall, The Gods The Gods The Gods, Asi Wind: Incredibly Human, Red, Son of a Bitch

Walked out, or wish I had: Simon Godwin’s Macbeth, Darkfield’s Arcade, Wayne McGregor’s MADDADDAM, Robert Icke’s Oedipus, Waiting for Godot, Passing Strange, Boys From the Blackstuff

Best of 2024: Books

~ Shakeel Hashim ~ Leave a comment

I’m a bit ashamed at how little I’ve read this year — just 24 books — though at least that’s better than last year’s pitiful 15. Here are the best — none of which were published this year, interestingly.

Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang

In my mid-year roundup I said this was “brilliantly funny, very gripping, and almost Nabokovian in its use of a detestable narrator”. I stand by that — and it’s still on my mind almost a year after I read it.

Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell

I previously said this “perfectly captures a very specific time of life, and is full of drop-dead gorgeous lines that permanently change the way you think”. A good reminder, for me, to always read the back catalogue of authors you love!

Cinema Speculation, by Quentin Tarantino

Back in May I said I “liked, but didn’t love” this. But the more I think about it, the more I like it. Tarantino is, unsurprisingly, an encyclopedia of film knowledge. I learnt a lot reading this — about old movies, yes, but also about Tarantino and why his films are the way they are. I’ve gained a lot of new appreciation for them from this book; that alone makes it worth reading.

On The Road, by Jack Kerouac

This is truly special. It’s both intimate and sweeping, propulsive and ponderous — I really adored it. I read “The Original Scroll”, which is uncensored and unanonymised, and I’m quite glad I did: I think the realism added to the magic.

Super-Infinite, by Katherine Rundell

I read this after enjoying Rundell’s appearance on Conversations With Tyler, despite it not seeming particularly up my street. But it’s great! I learnt a ton about John Donne, of whom I was almost entirely ignorant, who appears to have been both very funny and very … modern.

I also very much enjoyed A State of Fear, about the brutal years of Argentina’s “Dirty War” — which was in fact just a brutal military junta where it was very normal for random people to be abducted off the streets of Buenos Aires and murdered. Reading this in Buenos Aires was a trip — another win for Eland publishers. I did not enjoy the other Argentina-related book I read though, In Patagonia, which I found more than a bit overrated.

My other big trip this year was to India, prompting me to read the fun and interesting Loot (about Tipu Sultan) and The Anarchy (about the East India Company). I read Ways of Seeing in India too — interesting enough but didn’t shake me to my core or anything.

I also read a bunch of books about the history of the panorama/immersive art for an essay I never got round to writing (but might do next year): Panoramania was my favourite, but The Panorama, American Sublime and Deceptions and Illusions are all worth a skim too.

Quite a lot of sci-fi/fantasy this year, too. I read The Three Body Problem and its sequels The Dark Forest and Death’s End, all of which have interesting stories and ideas but pretty poor prose. I can’t really remember what happened in Rendezvous With Rama — nor The Ministry of Time. And The Poppy War, also by Kuang, sadly failed to reach the heights of Yellowface. The Secret History of Twin Peaks is very silly but a nice way to prolong my enjoyment of the show.

Other fiction included Circe (very good, particularly as an audiobook), I’m A Fan (decent but too didactic), and the oldest book I read this year, Rebecca (which feels pretty fresh given its age!).

Looking at my picks from last year: The Remains of the Day and Small Things Like These have stuck with me; the others not so much.

Theatre reviews: Where We Meet; Bound; Salt The Threshold

~ Shakeel Hashim ~ Leave a comment

Where We Meet

London is currently exploding with experimental theatre, much of it (The Manikins, Bound, Origins) taking ideas from city stalwart Punchdrunk and pushing them in new directions. Where We Meet, currently making its way around various fringe festivals, is one of the more technologically interesting of the new crop.

In a dark room, three dancers are spaced apart, lit with spotlights. Audience members, armed with headphones fitted with location-tracking beacons, are free to roam the space. As they move, monologues appear to emanate from each dancer, growing louder as spectators approach. A visual component is the cherry on top, with the performers’ spotlights contracting as viewers draw near—a clever, if not entirely successful, attempt to beckon the audience closer.

The audio component is a total triumph. The seamless integration of head-tracking technology with the audio creates a convincingly three-dimensional soundscape, anchoring each narrative firmly to its corresponding dancer. It works creatively, too. Listening to the dancers’ stories offers both depth and a welcome narrative lifeline to the interpretative dance. And while the text isn’t particularly profound, the exploration of insecurities does, at times, strike a nerve.

Equally clever is the show’s adaptability. Performers can adjust the audio in real-time, initiating sequences that involve audience interaction. Though not quite seamless, it’s a nice way of letting performers play with the crowd they’ve got — and adds much welcome variety for a show that loops even within a short 35 minute runtime.

Less successful is the lighting component. The lighting design, intended to “[free] people from being self-conscious”, does the opposite. By creating a boundary that contracts as soon as your foot touches it, you constantly feel like you’re violating the performers’ space. Rather than drawing you in, the design encourages you to keep your distance — far from the desired effect.

But the biggest problem is the show’s small scope. The technology cries out for a larger, more labyrinthine venue and more performers, a setting which would let you truly explore and craft your own show. In a smaller context, that doesn’t work so well. Having all performers visible at all times induces a constant sense of missed opportunities, and there isn’t quite enough variety to keep audiences engaged: despite the short run-time, I still saw scenes repeat. Yet despite these shortcomings, Where We Meet represents an exciting step forward: an impressive technological effort that has huge potential.

Bound

It is hard to make a show about grief that you leave desperately wanting to rewatch. Yet Bound achieves it. This Punchdrunkian production — a promenade physical-theatre piece — is a startlingly accomplished production from Amber Jarman-Crainey and collaborators; all the more so for it being (as far as I can tell) her first large-scale production.

Conceived in the aftermath of Jarman-Crainey’s brother’s death, Bound features nine performers roaming the crumbling rooms of the South Bank’s Bargehouse. Each embodies a distinct response to grief: some drink, some wail, some put on a brave face and push through. While moments of interaction punctuate the performance, the characters are largely isolated they’re by themselves, offering audiences the freedom to pursue individual narratives.

The performances are, without fail, astounding — and heartbreaking. Vinicius Salles‘ homeless alcoholic dances with an exceptional blend of despair, longing, and hope, all heightened by occasional, deeply profound, moments of audience interaction. Dominic Coffey, meanwhile, visualises the horror of intrusive thoughts with violent, intense physicality, throwing himself against walls and clawing at his own head in a performance that’s exhausting to watch, let alone perform. And Rosalia Panepinto’s blood-curdling screams are genuinely difficult to hear — yet, reverberating around the building, impossible to escape.

As in all the best immersive shows, that building becomes a character all of its own. Though the set design is minimal — and a bit too reliant on draped plastic sheets for my liking — it can afford to be in a building with such inherent atmosphere. Teetering on the edge of derelict, the Bargehouse has a haunted feeling to it, its bare, crumbling walls evoking grief all on their own.

Bound is not perfect. It unsurprisingly lacks the polish of its more established peers; lighting and music in particular could do with some work. But it’s nevertheless immensely powerful. Bound’s triumph is that it doesn’t just show you grief: it envelops you in it, forces you to feel it. It catapults you back into your darkest times, making you to sit with something we all too often push down. While that’s hardly comfortable — and may prove too much for some — there is something cathartic to it. You leave feeling less alone, armed with the knowledge that these experiences, terrible though they are, are shared.

Salt The Threshold

The Manikins, arguably the hottest show of the year, came out of last year’s Advanced Theatre Practice course at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. The work of this year’s cohort, therefore, seemed worth investigating — particularly that of Manikins’ actor Amber Williams.

Salt the Threshold, created and performed by Williams and Haeyoung Yun, is a fascinating, multi-layered piece that defies easy categorisation. What begins as a humdrum dramedy soon veers into horror, then meta-theatre, then a puppet show. Cramming that much into a 105-minute runtime would typically make for a car crash, even in experienced playwrights’ hands. Yet despite occasional pacing issues, Williams and Yun somehow craft a coherent, compelling narrative.

There’s a thematic core to the play — though it reveals itself slowly — and all the experimentalism carefully works in service of it. Rather than throwing a grab-bag of ideas at you, the pair instead choose to explore a single concept through multiple lenses, to pretty masterful effect. What could have been a chaotic assemblage, then, is instead a nuanced exploration of what it means to be trapped in a failing relationship.

It helps that both Williams and Yun are fantastic performers. Williams commands the stage, seamlessly transitioning between levity and intensity as the script demands. That makes for a fabulous pairing with Yun, a wonderful physical performer who is silent for much of the play yet speaks volumes.

Combined with very clever, and thematically relevant, set design, you’re left with a piece that could, and should, grace a professional stage. Since COVID, those professional venues have too often been full of banal, safe work. Salt the Threshold is an exciting reminder that that doesn’t have to be the case; that there are plenty of exciting theatre-makers in the city with original, fresh ideas — and they deserve to be seen.

Bangalore/Hampi/Mysore, August 2024

~ Shakeel Hashim ~ Leave a comment

I spent a few weeks in India last month; here are some thoughts and tips. Huge thanks to Sam Mendelsohn for his extensive tips and recommendations; if you’re going to India anytime soon his blog is an absolute must.

Specific details on each city below, but some general observations first:

  • I enjoyed this trip, but I enjoyed it less than my other two trips to India (Golden Triangle and Mumbai). I think some of that is that India is increasingly less novel to me, but I also think the south (at least these parts of it) is just less interesting to me than the north. (I have the obvious bias here of being ancestrally from North India, though.)
  • I was a little apprehensive about visiting during monsoon season, but it was totally fine. Some showers — especially in Bekal, where we ended up — but they’re generally over very quickly. The heat and humidity was a bit of a problem, especially in Hampi and Bekal, but it was never oppressively bad (and certainly better than it would have been in April/May).
  • The food down here is really good. I’ve never been a particularly big fan of dosas when I’ve had them in the UK; but in India they were excellent. Lots of things I’d never tried before, too (e.g. coconut chutney); almost all were great. It’s underrated just how different the food is from the north (though you can still get excellent northern dishes, too).

Bangalore

I was pretty surprised by Bangalore — it felt much more different to Delhi and Mumbai than I expected. I can’t quite put my finger on why: some of it is the greenery, but I think mostly it was the wealth that surprised me. Indiranagar and Church Street, in particular, felt very not-Indian; instead closer to something like Jordan or even the UK. The tech money is very visceral, though it also makes the city less interesting to visit, IMO.

Speaking of Church Street, I really enjoyed Blossom Book House, a chaotic labyrinth with a phenomenal selection. I would never have expected to find one of the world’s very best bookshops in Bangalore, but this is absolutely up there with The Strand, Daunt, Mast etc. as one of my favourites, anywhere.

The Museum of Art and Photography, a relatively new place, was very good, and features some of the best use of augmented reality I’ve seen in any museum, anywhere. Having Bloomberg Connects codes on every single exhibit was really impressive.

The flower market was my other highlight, much more expansive and active than I expected. It’s also a very interesting insight into what an economy with very low wages gets you: an astonishing number of people worked there, hand-threading garlands that are then sold by the metre and discarded after a few days. The surrounding ‘normal’ market wasn’t particularly interesting, though, and much worse than e.g. Chandi Chowk.

Karavalli was an exceptional restaurant, and though expensive by Indian standards it’s still cheap. Tons of hyper-regional stuff I’d never tried before (and expect I will never try again); the bebinka desert was particularly excellent. It’s a shame that they don’t do any sort of tasting menu though (and I did ask if they could) — I would have liked to try much more than we did. If you can go with a group, that’s obviously preferable, though there was a solo diner at the table next to us who seemed to be having a great time.

I was pretty underwhelmed by the Botanical Gardens, though we went in-between flower shows, which probably didn’t help. Worth visiting the area though so you can have lunch at MTR, which was a fun (and tasty) experience.

We stayed at the Adarsh Hamilton Hotel, which was great for the price (good location, decent breakfast). Then we flew from Bangalore to Vidyanagar (cheap and easy) and got a taxi from there to Hampi/Hospet (also cheap and easy; we didn’t have to prebook).

Hampi

Hampi is an interesting place, and I think it’s worth visiting, though I couldn’t help negatively comparing it to the sites of the north. It’s all good and impressive, but it’s samey and there weren’t many things that truly blew me away (in the way that e.g. the doorways in Jaipur’s City Palace or the marble windows in Fatehpur Sikri did). It’s not a slam-dunk must-visit, but if you’re nearish and interested in history, you’ll probably enjoy it. Perhaps the best reason for going is that it’ll force you to learn about the Vijayanagara Empire, which I’d never heard of but was once very important!

We stayed in Hosapete, which was fine; our hotel (Malligi Hotel) was nice enough and had two restaurants, which saved us bothering to go out in the evening. We did go to Naivedyam for lunch one day, which was pretty good.

I mostly followed Sam Mendelohn’s suggested itinerary, which worked well. On both days we hired an auto for the whole day; this was well worth it. My number one recommendation is probably to get the book Hampi Vijayanagara by John M Fritz and George Michell. Bring it with you (or get it on your phone) and read the relevant sections as you’re in each place. Much more useful and interesting than the guides, who don’t actually know very much (but are useful for photoshoots).

Day 1: Auto to the far end of Hampi Bazaar. Walk along the river, end up at Vittala Temple (which is pretty and expansive). Looped back round, saw the Achyutaraya Temple (which was empty aside from us) and the big nandi. Then we met our driver, who took us across the bazaar to the Virupaksha Temple (full of monkeys, and the stepwell behind it is pretty). By this point it was around lunchtime and we were tired, so we went back to the hotel to rest. That evening, our auto driver collected us again and took us to the Malyavanta Raghunatha Temple for sunset. We didn’t actually get to see the sunset because a jobsworth guard kicked everyone off the viewing point before the sun set, but the views were still nice and the temple is peaceful with lots of very fun monkeys to observe.

Day 2: We focused on the “royal enclosure“. We didn’t really control our itinerary here, our driver just took us from point to point — which was actually quite nice for reducing the cognitive burden of planning. I preferred this part of Hampi; the Islamic influence improves the architecture quite a lot. I enjoyed the Queen’s Baths, the stepwell, the “secret” passage, the Hazara Rama Temple, and the very ornate Lotus Mahal. Also really liked the massive Narasimha and Kadalekalu Ganesha monoliths. We also went to the museum, which was fine but not particularly good. After all that, we were pretty exhausted, so we just called it a day.

From Hosapete, we then took a sleeper train to Mysore. We booked two berths in a 1A carriage, which was obviously the right decision. We had to share our cabin with two other people, but they were a very nice and polite middle-aged couple who didn’t make any noise, so it was totally fine. The toilets were clean, and the whole journey was much more comfortable than the last Indian sleeper train I took — at least part of which is probably down to taking the unbeatable combo of melatonin and diphenhydramine just as I boarded. I highly recommend sleeper trains; it makes the best use of your limited travel time and saves you a night’s accomodation, too.

Mysore

This is a really lovely city: just the right amount of chaotic while still feeling very liveable, and with plenty to see and do. Mysore Palace is supposedly the highlight, but I was somewhat underwhelmed: it’s pretty, don’t get me wrong, but the visiting experience is a bit like being shepherded through a Disneyland queue. I couldn’t find anywhere to hire a guide, which I think detracted from the experience a lot. We went back to see the palace and gardens lit up at night; that was pretty and the live music was fun. Nearby is the Jagan Mohan Palace art gallery: the ground floor is excellent; the rest is skippable IMO.

Instead, my highlight was Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace in nearby Srirangapatna (you can book a taxi there, though we had to book a round-trip). This place is stunning — pictures don’t do it justice — and probably my highlight of the whole trip. The decoration is absurdly intricate and well-preserved, with an absolute ton packed into a really tiny space. The paintings mocking the British are particularly excellent. The nearby Gumbaz, where Tipu is buried, is also great. I think all of this was enhanced by reading Tania James’ Loot, a beautifully written novel about Tipu’s Tiger and colonialism, while in Mysore.

Two other unexpected highlights were the Sand Sculpture Museum and the Shell Museum, both conveniently near our hotel (the Windflower, which was lovely). Each is dedicated to a different, slightly mad, artist who has decided to pursue a niche craft to excellence: sand sculptures and shell sculptures respectively. The actual art in each isn’t exactly brilliant; it’s certainly not going to emotionally move you. But it is all incredibly impressive, and as testaments to the power of pursuing your passions they’re both really inspiring (as cheesy as that sounds). They’re across the road from each other and cost next-to-nothing to visit; you should go.

Shopping-wise, I was glad to get a selection of Mysore Pak from Guru Sweet Mart, though it’s very sweet, and the Cauvery Government Store has some cool stuff (though it’s very expensive and the checkout process is idiotically convoluted). As for food, I am eternally grateful to Sam for his recommendation of the Old Original Hotel Vinayaka Mylari, which has just moved into larger and fancier new premises. The Mylari dosa here is incredible and, at 55 rupees per dosa (with coconut chutney), possibly the best value food I’ve ever had. There is no menu or bill, they just tally up how many dosas you’ve had at the end and cross-reference it against this excellent wall-chart:

Bekal

There is not much to say about Bekal as we very intentionally did absolutely nothing while there. The drive from Mysore to Bekal, through the mountains and rainforests, was very fun (though at times a bit terrifying). We stayed at the Taj Bekal, which is a beautiful hotel with excellent (expensive) food, but iffy service. A great place to read your book in a pool, though, which is the best activity anyone could ever ask for.

San Francisco / Berkeley, August 2024

~ Shakeel Hashim ~ Leave a comment
  1. I was underwhelmed by almost all the food on this visit. Thanh Long’s garlic noodles aren’t as special as one is led to believe (and certainly not worth the price); Rose Pizzeria is fine but doesn’t hold a candle to basically any pizzeria in NYC or Chicago; La Taqueria and Hang Ah Tea Room are both fine but nothing special; and Tartine’s cakes are actively disappointing. At normal prices this would all have been tolerable; at SF prices it feels like robbery.
    • I thought Escape from NY, Woodhouse Fish Co. and Las Cabanas were all decent and not ridiculously priced, though.
  2. The big exception to this is the superb Arsicault. My friend described their pain au chocolat to me as the most delicious thing he’s ever eaten; it’s hard to disagree with that assessment. The croissants are superb, too.
  3. I’ve been to SF MOMA before, but enjoyed it even more this time round. The Visitors is particularly special — I went in expecting to stay for 5 minutes, and ended up remaining for over an hour.
  4. Berkeley has some really excellent book shops. Half-Price Books has, as the name implies, very good prices (especially by American standards), while Moe’s has an exceptional selection of second-hand film books (an oddly small history of technology section for the region, though).
  5. Golden Gate Park is absolutely stunning. Smells great, too.
  6. If only the same could be said for Market Street, which is still an absolute disaster. 
  7. Waymo taxis, now omnipresent in the city, are very obviously the future. A faultless journey, aside from the end: it dropped me off down an alleyway next to someone high on fentanyl, which sounds so absurd I’m sure you think I made it up.
  8. The De Young is a pretty middling museum (certainly not worth the admission fee), and it ought to be criminal to own a Turrell Skyspace but not allow access at sunset.
  9. The Musée Mecanique, on the other hand, is an absolute delight — an obvious labour of love, and a fascinating one at that. Cheap, too!
  10. It continues to be very odd that a broadly quite average city (at least in terms of museums, food, theatre, transport) is the most important place on earth.

Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony review: an absolute disaster

~ Shakeel Hashim ~ Leave a comment

Paris 2024 made a big deal of being the first Olympics to not use a stadium for the opening ceremony. Instead, the city would be the stage, the ceremony opened up to the masses via a procession down the Seine. If they pulled it off, it would be a logistical and creative marvel. 

They didn’t.

Paris’s opening ceremony was instead the worst in recent memory, an interminably boring display which undermined itself at every turn. One would never have known it was directed by a theatre director: the concepts of pacing and narrative structure were completely absent, with the show feeling more like a tacky variety TV extravaganza than anything theatrical.

The biggest mistake revealed itself early. Typically, the athletes’ parade is saved for a lull in the middle: long and repetitive, it’s the moment for audiences to take a break. Paris, for some reason, decided instead to interweave it with the main show. That choice robbed the event of all momentum: just as it was about to gain some steam, everything ground to a halt as we cut to a slow procession of ugly barges.

No one appears to have considered the scale of the parade either — or how long it would take to get from point A to point B. That led to some farcical scenes: while watching the torch bearer zoom down the Seine on a mechanical horse was at first thrilling, by the time the background music looped for a second time it was instead excruciating. Twenty minutes later, while watching a now-real horse slowly shuffle down the Trocadero, one started looking up recipes for tartare de cheval.

The sloppiness and lack of planning was visible throughout. The woefully out of sync cancan dancers seemed to have never rehearsed. The barges, instead of being wrapped in Paris 2024 branding, were kept bare and drab. The TV direction cut from one bad angle to another, often choosing to abandon a genuinely interesting spectacle to instead show us a boring pre-recorded video. The sound mixing was awful. And it was obvious that no preparation had been made for the possibility of rain — which made everything all the worse.

To be sure, there were some beautiful moments. The water-splashing dancers outside Notre Dame were very talented. The blood soaked and heavy metal soundtracked recreation of revolution was thrilling. Celine Dion and Aya Nakamura were excellent. And the hot air balloon cauldron was unforgettable. But these moments were brief and fleeting, struggling to make their mark amid the slowness of everything else.

There was a good show lurking in this four hour behemoth. If only the organisers had found it.