Summer Strallen, who played the similarly named Summer Shaw on teen soap Hollyoaks, has just made her debut in The Sound of Music at London's Palladium Theatre. If, like us, you enjoy a bit of a Hollyoaks omnibus on a hungover Sunday, you'll be familiar with Summer's journey from soap star to West End star. For those of you who are Hollyoaks impaired, it's actually all a bit confusing. Strallen joined the Hollyoaks cast......

We've not done very well on the virtuous January front and seem to have spent all our money and most of our nights out on the lash with a flagrant disregard for propriety and our bank account. We don't mind though because, as usual, there are some excellent free things to do in town this week. Monday: British Asian gangsta folk ska punk is where it's at with the intriguing sounding Barbar Luck at......

Well, here it is. New Year’s Eve. We’ve told you where to go for fireworks, and where to go dancing, but you may not be feeling up for the whole NYE hullabaloo. If that’s the case, or if you’re feeling very ambitious and hosting your own celebration at home and are in need of background telly, here are a few things you might want to take a peek at. On TV, Londonist likes: New......

West End theatre is something probably most of us can't really afford that often, but if seeing the big shows is what rings your bell then you'll want to be heading down to Leicester Square this weekend. On Saturday and Sunday from 1230 - 6pm, West End Live will take over the square to showcase all the West End has to offer and in particular on the theatre side. A large stage will be......

Before we begin, we'd like to extend our deepest sympathies to the family of James Kim. We are not, by any means, trying to discount that tragedy by juxtaposing posts about the Kims with more light-hearted posts. It's the nature of doing a compilation such as this one: we're trying to give a full slice of the goings-on in the Ist-a-Verse: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Londonist wants you to know where to......

If there was a list of London's most influential clubnights over the last ten years, then Monday-nighter Trash would definitely be on it. Originally hosted at Plastic People (then on Oxford Street) in 1997, it set out to merge the boundaries between dance and rock music, and well, just play good stuff that everyone could dance to. Going via The Annex before arriving at current venue The End in 2000, promoter Erol Alken has played......

The usual programming at weekly alternative gay night Popstarz @ Scala was interrupted for a raucous 30 minutes last Friday as Brooklyn natives We Are Scientists took the stage in the indie room and proved that New York still holds it own on the scene. Plus, as the band released their 2nd album Crap Attack, it showed off just how much impressive songs from In Love And Squalor are when played in concert. Watching......

Preparations for 2012 are 'substantially' ahead of schedule reckons Tessa Jowell. London is the 'perfect place' to start the Tour de France says Ken. really? Because we would have thought France would have been top of that list. Bob Marley's heritage plaque was unveiled today, it's at 34 Ridgmount Gardens, Camden if you want to go visit. (We can guaranteee that the number of people cautioned for smoking marijuana in Camden will shoot up......

A new report says that Muslims should 'play a greater role' in London's politics and the economy to help stem prejudice and discrimination. In the meantime, the City apparently needs to do more business with China and India. Looks like they might spray the Tube with anti-flu disinfectant. It works in Hong Kong by all accounts. A 'location aware' adventure game at the Tower of London you say? Where do we sign up? Dirty......

Pentonville prison has a pretty bad vermin problem. Can any budding pied pipers please report to the head warden. According to Ken the environment is the issue which will dominate the next election... ...However Ken also let slip that the German owners of Thames Water aren't very keen on talking about his toilet flushing habits. Is Sigourney Weaver coming to the West End? If she is she might want to think about joining Dirty......

It might sound like a stereotypical thing to say, but really, really, it is very hard to find a girl who doesn’t love Dirty Dancing with all her heart, or at the very least like it enough to watch it whenever they’ve got time. If you don’t win anything on our Somerset House competition and can’t afford to go, then you’re in luck because tomorrow night new soft-drink Shloer is putting on a free......

The wet-knickered waiting for the casting of Dirty Dancing for stage is over. According to the Daily Mail, a complete unknown will play the coveted role of Baby (whom nobody puts in a corner) - but a little closer reading reveals that the lucky actress has already been in the West End, starring opposite no less than Dame Diana Rigg in Honour at the Wyndham's Theatre and in two Shakespeare plays at the Crucible......

The Queen Elizabeth Hall foyer is normally full of QEH attendees milling around awkwardly before taking their seats in the auditorium, sipping warm gin and tonics and avoiding eye contact with one another in that peculiar London theatre audience way... but this sunny Bank Holiday afternoon, everything was different. We said it was going to be swinging on South Bank this Bank Holiday weekend... and it was. The QEH foyer was full of people......

But the West End stage is another thing altogether: Classic 1980s romance DIRTY DANCING is being turned into a stage musical to hit London's West End this October. The show will follow the path of movies-turned-musicals BILLY ELLIOT and THE PRODUCERS, after a successful run in Australia's theatre district. This is great news. Not because of the wonderful dialogue that will finally get a chance to soar as sing-a-long-a-lyrics: I'm gonna do my kind......

Local councils are apparently not above hiring private detectives to keep tabs on the coming and goings of certain gentleman's clubs. It was revealed today that two London lapdancing venues were investigated last year by a council-hired PI after claims that sex was for sale along with the overpriced drinks and pole dancing: Arriving for a Friday night Gentleman's Evening in September last year, the investigator paid £10 membership and £15 to enter. He......