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Prayers and thoughts: The Inseparables @Finboroughtheatre

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The Inseparables brings Simone de Beauvoir’s posthumously published novel to life. It traces a lifelong friendship between Sylve and Andrée, two unconventional girls who grew up in a stifling world where being a woman meant getting married or entering a convent. With a quick pace and engaging performances from the two leads, it is a journey back into the 20th century that captures two unconventional women trapped in a conventional world that will have you reflecting on how much or little things have moved on in the last century. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre .  We’re introduced to Sylve praying for her country, France, to be saved from the war and indoctrinated into the world of faith and obedience. But too smart for all that, her life was full of detached guilt and boredom. But when she meets Andrée, a new arrival at her school, she is struck by how different she is from everyone else. She was burned in a fire and had a passion for life that nobody else she knew...

Art Previews: Hugh Beattie's London Ancient and Modern @jhlbeattie @lagalleria

Opening this week at the Royal Opera Arcade off Pall mall is Hugh Beattie's exhibition called London: Ancient and Modern.

The exhibition brings together 30 new paintings by artist Hugh Beattie depicting views of London’s skyline which we do not normally see.  The works contrast the heritage of London and the new architecture of glass.

Over 70% of the City of London’s buildings have been erected since the millennium. In Beattie’s canvases, Early Medieval buildings share the cityscape with towering Modernist flats.



Hugh Beattie trained at Chelsea and Camberwell art college. He has also travelled to Florence to learn to paint in the style of Titian and S Sargent. Having previously painted Rome and Venice, Beattie has been drawn back to London focusing on executing studies of London cityscapes in oil.

The exhibition runs at the Royal Opera Arcade gallery through to Saturday 5 December and is open from 11am-6pm. Admission is free.

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