Leisure and entertainment

Leisure is a major part of the London economy. A 2003 report attributed a quarter of the entire UK leisure economy to London^[348] at 25.6 events per 1000 people.^[349] The city is one of the four fashion capitals of the world, and, according to official statistics, is the world's third-busiest film production centre, presents more live comedy than any other city,^[350] and has the biggest theatre audience of any city in the world.^[351]

Within the City of Westminster, the entertainment district of the West End has its focus around Leicester Square, where London and world film premieres are held, and Piccadilly Circus, with its giant electronic advertisements.^[352] London's theatre district is here, as are many cinemas, bars, clubs, and restaurants, including the city's Chinatown district (in Soho), and just to the east is Covent Garden, an area housing speciality shops. In 1881, the West End's Savoy Theatre, which was built to showcase the plays of Gilbert and Sullivan, was fitted with the incandescent light bulb developed by Sir Joseph Swan to become the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electricity.^[353] The city is the home of Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose musicals have dominated West End theatre since the late 20th century.^[354] Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, the world's longest-running play, has been performed in the West End since 1952.^[355] The Laurence Olivier Awards–named after Laurence Olivier–are given annually by the Society of London Theatre. The Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Royal Opera, and English National Opera are based in London and perform at the Royal Opera House, the London Coliseum, Sadler's Wells Theatre, and the Royal Albert Hall, as well as touring the country.^[356]

Islington's 1 mile (1.6 km) long Upper Street, extending northwards from Angel, has more bars and restaurants than any other street in the UK.^[357] Europe's busiest shopping area is Oxford Street, a shopping street nearly 1 mile (1.6 km) long, making it the longest shopping street in the UK. It is home to vast numbers of retailers and department stores, including Selfridges flagship store.^[358] Knightsbridge, home to the equally renowned Harrods department store, lies to the south-west. One of the world's largest retail destinations, London frequently ranks at or near the top of retail sales of any city.^[359]^[360] Opened in 1760 with its flagship store on Regent Street since 1881, Hamleys is the oldest toy store in the world.^[361] Madame Tussauds wax museum opened in Baker Street in 1835, an era viewed as being when London's tourism industry began.^[362]

London is home to designers John Galliano, Stella McCartney, Manolo Blahnik, and Jimmy Choo, among others; its renowned art and fashion schools make it one of the four international centres of fashion. Mary Quant designed the miniskirt in her King's Road boutique in Swinging Sixties London.^[363] In 2017, London was ranked the top city for luxury store openings.^[364] London Fashion Week takes place twice a year, in February and September; Londoners on the catwalk have included Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne.^[365]

London offers a great variety of cuisine as a result of its ethnically diverse population. Gastronomic centres include the Bangladeshi restaurants of Brick Lane and the Chinese restaurants of Chinatown.^[366] There are Chinese takeaways throughout London, as are Indian restaurants which provide Indian and Anglo-Indian cuisine.^[367] Around 1860, the first fish and chips shop in London was opened by Joseph Malin, a Jewish immigrant, in Bow.^[320] The full English breakfast dates from the Victorian era, and many cafes in London serve a full English throughout the day.^[368] London has five 3-Michelin star restaurants, including Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea.^[369] Many hotels in London provide a traditional afternoon tea service, such as the Oscar Wilde Lounge at the Hotel Café Royal in Piccadilly, and a themed tea service is also available, for example an Alice in Wonderland themed afternoon tea served at the Egerton House Hotel, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory themed afternoon tea at One Aldwych in Covent Garden.^[370]^[371] The nation's most popular biscuit to dunk in tea, chocolate digestives have been manufactured by McVitie's at their Harlesden factory in north-west London since 1925.^[372]

There is a variety of annual events, beginning with the relatively new New Year's Day Parade, a fireworks display at the London Eye; the world's second largest street party, the Notting Hill Carnival, is held on the late August Bank Holiday each year. Traditional parades include November's Lord Mayor's Show, a centuries-old event celebrating the annual appointment of a new Lord Mayor of the City of London with a procession along the streets of the city, and June's Trooping the Colour, a formal military pageant performed by regiments of the Commonwealth and British armies to celebrate the King's Official Birthday.^[373] The Boishakhi Mela is a Bengali New Year festival celebrated by the British Bangladeshi community. It is the largest open-air Asian festival in Europe. After the Notting Hill Carnival, it is the second-largest street festival in the United Kingdom attracting over 80,000 visitors.^[374] First held in 1862, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show (run by the Royal Horticultural Society) takes place in May every year.^[375]

LGBT scene

The first gay bar in London in the modern sense was The Cave of the Golden Calf, established as a night club in an underground location at 9 Heddon Street, just off Regent Street, in 1912 and "which developed a reputation for sexual freedom and tolerance of same-sex relations."^[376]

Thumb — Comptons of Soho during London Pride in 2010

While London has been an LGBT tourism destination, after homosexuality was decriminalised in England in 1967 gay bar culture became more visible, and from the early 1970s Soho (and in particular Old Compton Street) became the centre of the London LGBT community.^[377] G-A-Y, previously based at the Astoria, and now Heaven, is a long-running night club.^[378]

Wider British cultural movements have influenced LGBT culture: for example, the emergence of glam rock in the UK in the early 1970s, via Marc Bolan and David Bowie, saw a generation of teenagers begin playing with the idea of androgyny, and the West End musical The Rocky Horror Show, which debuted in London in 1973, is also widely said to have been an influence on countercultural and sexual liberation movements.^[379] The Blitz Kids (which included Boy George) frequented the Tuesday club-night at Blitz in Covent Garden, helping launch the New Romantic subcultural movement in the late 1970s.^[380] Today, the annual London Pride Parade and the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival are held in the city.^[377]

Literature, film and television

London has been the setting for many works of literature. The pilgrims in Geoffrey Chaucer's late 14th-century Canterbury Tales set out for Canterbury from London. William Shakespeare spent a large part of his life living and working in London; his contemporary Ben Jonson was also based there, and some of his work, most notably his play The Alchemist, was set in the city.^[381] A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) by Daniel Defoe is a fictionalisation of the events of the 1665 Great Plague.^[381]

The literary centres of London have traditionally been hilly Hampstead and (since the early 20th century) Bloomsbury. Writers closely associated with the city are the diarist Samuel Pepys, noted for his eyewitness account of the Great Fire; Charles Dickens, whose representation of a foggy, snowy, grimy London of street sweepers and pickpockets has influenced people's vision of early Victorian London; and Virginia Woolf, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the 20th century.^[381] Later important depictions of London from the 19th and early 20th centuries are Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.^[381] Robert Louis Stevenson mixed in London literary circles, and in 1886 he wrote the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a gothic novella set in Victorian London.^[382] In 1898, H. G. Wells' sci-fi novel The War of the Worlds sees London (and southern England) invaded by Martians.^[383] Letitia Elizabeth Landon wrote Calendar of the London Seasons in 1834. Modern writers influenced by the city include Peter Ackroyd, author of London: The Biography, and Iain Sinclair, who writes in the genre of psychogeography. In the 1940s, George Orwell wrote essays in the London Evening Standard, including "A Nice Cup of Tea" (method for making tea) and "The Moon Under Water" (an ideal pub).^[384] The WWII evacuation of children from London is depicted in C. S. Lewis' first Narnia book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950). On Christmas Eve 1925, Winnie-the-Pooh debuted in London's Evening News, with the character based on a stuffed toy A. A. Milne bought for his son Christopher Robin in Harrods.^[385] In 1958, author Michael Bond created Paddington Bear, a refugee found in Paddington station. A screen adaptation, Paddington (2014), features the calypso song "London is the Place for Me".^[386] Buckingham Palace features in Roald Dahl's 1982 novel The BFG.^[387]

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

'Calendar of the London Seasons', by L. E. L.

London has played a significant role in the film industry. Major studios within or bordering London include Pinewood, Elstree, Ealing, Shepperton, Twickenham, and Leavesden, with the James Bond and Harry Potter series among many notable films produced here.^[388]^[389] Working Title Films has its headquarters in London. A post-production community is centred in Soho, and London houses six of the world's largest visual effects companies, such as Framestore.^[390] The Imaginarium, a digital performance-capture studio, was founded by Andy Serkis.^[391] London has been the setting for films including Oliver Twist (1948), Scrooge (1951), Peter Pan (1953), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), My Fair Lady (1964), Mary Poppins (1964), Blowup (1966), A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Long Good Friday (1980), The Great Mouse Detective (1986), Notting Hill (1999), Love Actually (2003), V for Vendetta (2005), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2008) and The King's Speech (2010). Notable actors and filmmakers from London include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Caine, Julie Andrews, Peter Sellers, David Lean, Julie Christie, Gary Oldman, Emma Thompson, Guy Ritchie, Christopher Nolan, Alan Rickman, Jude Law, Helena Bonham Carter, Idris Elba, Tom Hardy, Daniel Radcliffe, Keira Knightley, Riz Ahmed, Dev Patel, Daniel Kaluuya, Tom Holland and Daniel Day-Lewis. Post-war Ealing comedies featured Alec Guinness, from the 1950s Hammer Horrors starred Christopher Lee, films directed by Michael Powell included the London-set early slasher Peeping Tom (1960), the 1970s comedy troupe Monty Python had film editing suites in Covent Garden, while since the 1990s Richard Curtis's rom-coms have featured Hugh Grant. The largest cinema chain in the country, Odeon Cinemas was founded in London in 1928 by Oscar Deutsch.^[392] The BFI IMAX on the South Bank is the largest cinema screen in the UK.^[393] The British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) have been held in London since 1949, with the BAFTA Fellowship the Academy's highest accolade.^[394] Founded in 1957, the BFI London Film Festival takes place over two weeks every October.^[395]

London is a major centre for television production, with studios including Television Centre, ITV Studios, Sky Campus and Fountain Studios; the latter hosted the original talent shows, Pop Idol, The X Factor, and Britain's Got Talent (the latter two created by TV personality Simon Cowell who starred as a judge in all three shows), before each format was exported around the world.^[396]^[397] Formerly a franchise of ITV, Thames Television featured comedians such as Benny Hill and Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean was first screened by Thames), while Talkback produced Da Ali G Show which featured Sacha Baron Cohen as Ali G.^[398] Many television shows have been set in London, including the popular television soap opera EastEnders.^[399]

Museums, art galleries and libraries

London is home to many museums, galleries, and other institutions, many of which are free of admission charges and are major tourist attractions as well as playing a research role. The first of these to be established was the British Museum in Bloomsbury, in 1753.^[400] Originally containing antiquities, natural history specimens, and the national library, the museum now has 7 million artefacts from around the globe. In 1824, the National Gallery was founded to house the British national collection of Western paintings; this now occupies a prominent position in Trafalgar Square.^[401]

The British Library is the second largest library in the world, and the national library of the United Kingdom.^[402] There are many other research libraries, including the Wellcome Library and Dana Centre, as well as university libraries, including the British Library of Political and Economic Science at LSE, the Abdus Salam Library at Imperial, the Maughan Library at King's, and the Senate House Libraries at the University of London.^[403]

In the latter half of the 19th century the locale of South Kensington was developed as "Albertopolis", a cultural and scientific quarter. Three major national museums are there: the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Natural History Museum, and the Science Museum. The National Portrait Gallery was founded in 1856 to house depictions of figures from British history; its holdings now comprise the world's most extensive collection of portraits.^[404] The national gallery of British art is at Tate Britain, originally established as an annexe of the National Gallery in 1897. The Tate Gallery, as it was formerly known, also became a major centre for modern art. In 2000, this collection moved to Tate Modern, a new gallery housed in the former Bankside Power Station which is accessed by pedestrians north of the Thames via the Millennium Bridge.^[405]

Music

London is one of the major classical and popular music capitals of the world and hosts major music corporations, such as Universal Music Group International and Warner Music Group, and countless bands, musicians and industry professionals. The city is also home to many orchestras and concert halls, such as the Barbican Arts Centre (principal base of the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Chorus), the Southbank Centre (London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra), Cadogan Hall (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) and the Royal Albert Hall (The Proms).^[356] The Proms, an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music first held in 1895, ends with the Last Night of the Proms. London's two main opera houses are the Royal Opera House and the London Coliseum (home to the English National Opera).^[356] The UK's largest pipe organ is at the Royal Albert Hall. Other significant instruments are in cathedrals and major churches—the church bells of St Clement Danes feature in the 1744 nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons".^[406] Several conservatoires are within the city: Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Trinity Laban. The record label EMI was formed in the city in 1931, and an early employee for the company, Alan Blumlein, created stereo sound that year.^[407] Guitar amp engineer Jim Marshall founded Marshall Amplification in London in 1962.^[408]

London has numerous venues for rock and pop concerts, including the world's busiest indoor venue, the O₂ Arena,^[409] and Wembley Arena, as well as many mid-sized venues, such as Brixton Academy, the Hammersmith Apollo and the Shepherd's Bush Empire.^[356] Several music festivals, including the Wireless Festival, Lovebox and Hyde Park's British Summer Time, are held in London.^[410]

The city is home to the original Hard Rock Cafe and the Abbey Road Studios, where the Beatles recorded many of their hits. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, musicians and groups like Elton John, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Queen, Eric Clapton, the Who, the Kinks, Cliff Richard, Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, T. Rex, the Police, Elvis Costello, Dire Straits, Cat Stevens, Fleetwood Mac, the Cure, Madness, Culture Club, Dusty Springfield, Phil Collins, Rod Stewart, Status Quo and Sade, derived their sound from the streets and rhythms of London.^[411]^[412]

London was instrumental in the development of punk music, with groups such as the Sex Pistols, the Clash and fashion designer Vivienne Westwood all based in the city.^[413] Other artists to emerge from the London music scene include George Michael, Kate Bush, Seal, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bush, the Spice Girls, Jamiroquai, Blur, the Prodigy, Gorillaz, Mumford & Sons, Coldplay, Dido, Amy Winehouse, Adele, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, Leona Lewis, Ellie Goulding, Dua Lipa and Florence and the Machine.^[414] Artists from London played a prominent role in the development of synth-pop, including Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, the Pet Shop Boys and Eurythmics; the latter's "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" was recorded in the attic of their north London home, heralding a trend for home recording methods.^[415] Artists from London with a Caribbean influence include Hot Chocolate, Billy Ocean, Soul II Soul and Eddy Grant, with the latter fusing reggae, soul and samba with rock and pop.^[416] London is also a centre for urban music. In particular the genres UK garage, drum and bass, dubstep and grime evolved in the city from the foreign genres of house, hip hop, and reggae, alongside local drum and bass. Urban acts from London include Stormzy, M.I.A., Jay Sean and Rita Ora. Music station BBC Radio 1Xtra was set up to support the rise of local urban contemporary music both in London and in the rest of the United Kingdom. The British Phonographic Industry's annual popular music awards, the Brit Awards, are held in London.^[417]