Our highly successful online talks - Curtain Up - continue this week with a fascinating look at the history, architecture and people of Soho accompanied by expert guide, historian Dan Cruickshank.
Architectural historian and Tv presenter Dan is the latest in a series of celebrity hosts taking part in the series presented iu nconjunctiion with Iconic Media Solutions.
He explores Soho’s centuries of rich and varied history as he guides us through the district’s many changes over the last five hundred years.
It was originally a byword for respectability, became London's bohemian quarter and once home to its criminal underworld.
See Soho’s history written in its surviving architecture. Cruickshank points out the streets that were the stamping grounds of criminal dynasties and directs our attention towards the homes of renowned prostitutes, revealing some surprising visitors - amongst them eighteenth-century painter Joshua Reynolds, whose peculiar 'caprice' was simply drawing the girls.
Soho has been home to many diverse characters and groups including Maltese mafia. Cruikshank draws these threads together with kaleidoscopic verve.
But even as he mourns some of the changes, he pays testament to the district's resilience. He observes how the common denominator over the centuries is that it has always been a destination for immigrants: from French Huguenots to the East European Jewish community and recent Chinese diaspora - and that this is the foundation of its spirit and success.
Soho’s History: Architecture and People presented by Dan Cruickshank can be seen on at 18.30pm on Thursday 10th December or Friday 11th December. Book your tickets today. Follow this link. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sohos-history-architecture-and-people-by-dan-cruickshank-livestream-tickets-130548404793?aff=erelexpmlthttp://Our