The sidewalk critic / the art of looking upwards

London: the daily grind, the constant pace, the constant fervour. It is a living and breathing entity with emotions, feelings and moods, just like you or I. Does London reflect mood or cause mood? Is my own fate dependent on its fate? We shape it over time, we mark it with signs, paint it with art, decorate / demolish / rebuild. At the same time the city shapes us. It gives us personality, memory and purpose.

Lewis Mumford, New York's 'sidewalk critic', once said the most beautiful thing about cities. He said that cities are a product of time, a fact of nature and a place where mind takes form. Adding “With language itself, it remains mans greatest work of art.”

Lost in thought and surrounded by strangers, somewhere between Hackney Central and Dalston Kingsland, a peeling patch of graffiti on an old brick wall reminded me of Mumford’s words. Someone’s imprint on the city – I don’t know its circumstances, its author, its purpose. But it has caused me to think about it and is part of my own consciousness now. Would that old wall have caught my attention without it? I doubt it. Would the graffiti have had the same impact on me if it wasn’t for the wall? I’ll never know.

Unique and imperfect details cover London; they cover all cities. Look sideways, look upwards (the image above shows an off-kilter square in Alexandra Palace's roof), downwards – they’re there. They are what makes the city appealing: at once both brightening the mood (mine and London’s) and providing a focus to counter the daily grind.

Clive Rowe: Nothing Like A Dame

Clive Rowe is the consummate pantomime dame. Oh yes he is! Described by The Guardian as "one of the greatest ", the Lancashire-born thesp has become a Hackney institution. In the seven years he's been playing here, Rowe has cultivated a loyal local following who turn out in force each Christmas to see him camp up his dramatic chops. Last year it was in Duke Whittington; this year Rowe stars as the lead in the Empire’s production of Mother Goose. It’s the tenth anniversary celebration of panto at the Empire and is a comic caper of epic proportions. Written by Susie McKenna, who’s been responsible for a number of the Empire’s Christmas hits, the show incorporates high-jinks and high drama to charming effect with Rowe the shining star in a stellar cast. He explains: “Mother Goose is about what happens if somebody is given what they believe they want, what happens to them when they get it and how they deal with it. It is what it says on the tin, a family panto.”

Rowe is an accomplished actor whose dedication to panto has brought credibility to the genre. He’s appeared in some of theatre’s best loved productions, including Carousel and Guys and Dolls, for which he won a coveted Olivier Award. “To have your peers that are people that you respect, who are above you and have been doing it for longer than you look at you and say, “we think what you’ve done is amazing”, is an amazing accolade”, he says.

It’s not just the theatrical establishment who've taken Rowe to their hearts - Hackney has too. I suggest it must be his Northern charm. “Init!” he jokes in a sketchy east London accent. “One of the things I’ve always felt about theatre, but is even more true with the Hackney Empire, is the show starts the minute you walk through the front door, not the minute you sit down in the auditorium and the lights go on. The minute you’re received here you’re part of the panto and everybody is working towards a fantastic night”.

Rowe has appeared in television, film and on radio but says he feels comfortable on the Hackney stage. Panto for him is as much a craft as any other kind of acting. “There’s a difficult balance to get where you’re keeping everything panto level because you’re playing to the five year olds but real. The trick is finding that core of it where you may be upset about something but you’re not doing Greek tragedy, you’re not doing Chekov, it’s panto”.

And Rowe loves it. “My thing is I have a great time. I spend all year being told what I can’t do on stage and I get five weeks to do what I want to do. The fact is I’m having a good time.” And so are we.

Mother Goose is on at the Hackney Empire until 10 January 2009.

Catching Up With the King of Shoes, Jimmy Choo

Hackney can claim many famous fashion alumni but none are as synonymous with style as shoemaker to the stars Jimmy Choo. A-listers from the worlds of film, music and the arts all flock to Choo’s swanky Central London boutique to get their mitts on his unique handmade shoes for everything from glitzy parties to glittering premieres. But when Jimmy Choo arrived in London in the 1980’s he couldn’t have known how important a role the bustling creative Hackney would play in his life. The borough gave the Malaysian his start in the fashion world, which would see him go from a struggling student to a multimillionaire.

As an apprentice at the prestigious Cordwainers’ Fashion Technical College, Choo perfected his craft as a shoemaker, his family trade, while working part-time at restaurants and as a cleaner at a shoe factory to help fund his education. “During the eighties I was in London for a holiday and a friend of mine told me there’s a special shoe college in Hackney called Cordwainers’”, Choo recalls. “Although I had training from my father, it’s always good to have an education and I didn’t have a certificate. So I enrolled in the college to learn more and get more advanced.”

At the time, as is today, Hackney was a hub of offbeat creative talent. The artistic energy that buzzed through the borough’s streets inspired Jimmy to stay local and in 1986, after leaving Cordwainers’, he opened his first workshop, renting an old hospital building. “Hackney was a fantastic place, very peaceful and very relaxed in those days,” Choo says, nostalgically. “All types of designers and artists were in Hackney, and a lot of music stars as well. There was also a lot of factories and manufacturing, especially shoe manufacturing. It was a great place.”

Jimmy’s craftsmanship and designs were soon noticed by those in the know in the industry and it didn’t take long before Jimmy Choo shoes became the must-have brand for serious fashionistas. Patronage from celebrities and royalty, including Diana, Princess of Wales, led Jimmy to become an international fashion icon and in 1998 his success was crowned when he scored an incredible coup when his creations were featured in a record eight pages of Vogue magazine. In 2000 Jimmy was awarded the Malaysian equivalent of a Queen’s honour for his achievements and two years later he received an OBE from the Queen herself in recognition of his services to the shoe and fashion industry in the UK.

But even though he’s mingled with the world’s top names and continues to ply his stylish trade Jimmy’s love and respect for his Hackney roots remains as strong as ever. “Hackney is a multicultural place. You have the Chinese, people from Jamaica, Ireland, Holland, all sorts of people who love to be in Hackney. I get my inspiration from that because it’s very important that I love what I’m doing and I mix with people and get an idea of how they dress. It’s fantastic. Hackney is a special place.”