Where Do you Go? with Suchandrika Chakrabarti
The comedian and podcaster on Noughties Camden, train station sushi and her favourite Budgens
Every now and again we like to ask people for their personal take on London. We get them to tell us the places in the city that they turn to for different reasons: the spots that excite them, inspire them, make them feel calm, happy or just make them want to spend money. We call it ‘Where do you go?’.
This week it’s the turn of Suchandrika Chakrabarti (above). Full disclosure: Suchandrika is a subscriber to this newsletter, but she’s also a fantastically funny and touching writer and performer who took her debut stand up show up to the Edinburgh Fringe this year. Plus she’s a born and bred Londoner (maybe the first to do a WDYG? - we’ll need to go back and check on that).
Who are you?
I’m Suchandrika, a comedian, writer and podcaster. From 2006 to 2018 I worked in journalism at places lik The Guardian, the Daily Mirror and The Associated Press. Since going freelance in 2018, I’ve been doing more varied things, like teaching, speaking at events and making audio to earn a living.
I started doing stand-up in January 2020. I took my debut comedy show I Miss Amy Winehouse up to Edinburgh Fringe for a full run this year, and now it’s transferring to The Pleasance in London in a few weeks, for one last performance [on 8 November, see the bottom of this interview for how to get 20% off tickets - ed]. I’ve also written most of my second show, Reunion/Afterparty and will be performing works in progress of that around London soon.
And why should we trust you?
I’m a born Londoner - not so much within earshot of Bow Bells, more the vrooming of the A127 where it ducks past Hornchurch on its way to hurry past the M25. Some call it Essex but I can assure you that you get to vote for Mayor of London there.
My mum got a job at Tower Hamlets College in Poplar in the 1990s, so I got to experience the majesty of driving the DLR over the river and through One Canada Square at the tender age of 7.
Since leaving Hornchurch in my early 20s, I’ve lived in many different parts of London - I even went south of the river for a bit - so you know that I’ve *seen* things (mainly gentrification and a lot of pop-ups).
As this is your debut stand up show, can you tell us a bit about your ‘journey’ (sorry) to being a standup comedian?
I’ve always loved comedy and wanted to try my hand at it, but had no idea how to begin. Plus when I was working full-time as a journalist and media trainer from 2006-2018, I didn’t have the time outside of work to commit to anything regularly. When I went freelance, it was a thought that kept growing for me, until I finally found and chose a comedy course, which was at The Bill Murray. I did that in early 2020, carried on gigging even through the pandemic (went online of course), and it’s become so much more a part of my life than I was expecting!
As a freelancer since 2018, I’ve found myself moving away from journalism as it simply doesn’t pay well enough for the hours put into just pitching alone. However, one kind of journalism I found myself doing more of was personal essays. I became so fond of the genre that I even started teaching three-hour-long Zoom classes on them during lockdown. A personal essay can have a lot in common with a stand-up set (at least the way I do comedy): they both need to have an authentic voice, a ring of truth to them and to reveal something about the narrator.
I was also trying to write a novel in lockdown - who wasn’t? - and I got two chapters in but then felt that maybe it was a show. So I challenged myself to write my first comedy show, and here we are. I now realise that when I wrote I Miss Amy Winehouse, I was adapting a personal essay style to a one-hour-long Edinburgh show format. You think the story’s about one thing and then I throw a curveball out there and you realise that it’s really about something very personal to me. So the show draws upon my history of writing in other forms. The surprise has been that I’ve been able to perform for an hour on stage, to remember any level of script at all, and that people have come along to watch and - crucially - laugh. That’s been incredible.
I Miss Amy Winehouse is very much about Noughties Camden. What’s the significance of that area and that era for you? And what’s your take on present day Camden?
Going back to the 1990s, growing up in Zone 6, just on the edge of London, I was desperate to be part of the ‘real London’, the one shimmering tantalisingly at the end of my local trainline (hello Gidea Park station, now part of the Lizzy Line). Camden and Portobello Road Market were the epitome of style and coolness for me. Once I’d moved out, I made a beeline for Angel (much more affordable back then, oh my god I’m three million years old), and my friends who were still doing medical degrees at UCL were a few bus stops down Euston Road, near Regents Park, so Camden became a natural meeting-point for us.
I started working at The Associated Press, which is based in The Interchange building within Camden Market, so I was fully elbowing tourists and emo goths aside to get to my weekend shifts. This was 2006-2012, the peak of Amy Winehouse’s career, and I was - still am - a fan of hers. I genuinely thought we’d bump into her on one of our many, many nights out in Camden. Despite her superstardom, there was a realness to her, this quality that made you think, oh she could be just round the corner.
In my case, that was factually correct, as her beloved Hawley Arms was the nearest pub to my work. It was the era of being very nonchalant about all the bands and stars you could spot across Proud Galleries, but internally screaming about it. I was in my 20s, the same age as Amy, and had no major plans for the future beyond having the most fun possible. London, especially Camden, was my playground.
Don’t talk to me about present-day Camden, please.
There’s a podcast too right? What are you trying to do with that that you can’t do with the live show?
The show is about finding solutions to missing someone, to grieving. It’s about losing an icon some of us felt inexplicably close to in Amy Winehouse, but it’s also about losing two people close to me in the early 2000s, and that’s an unusual and lonely experience, hard for other people to get inside of.
From the first time I performed the show (Brighton Fringe, June 2021), I realised that the show opens up a dialogue, that audience members would wait for me afterwards to talk about Amy, about grief, about both. I can’t always be as present in those moments right after a show as I’d like to be, so I thought, ‘other people seem to miss Amy too, let’s talk about her’.
I asked six people who work in cultural / creative areas to choose their top three Amy Winehouse tracks, and tell me about when they first heard them, who they were then, how the songs make them feel. It’s a kind of mini, very specific Desert Island Discs. The conversations go to places I couldn’t have predicted, and making the podcast on Anchor and Spotify’s Music + Talk platform means that I can include the full songs without copyright issues; royalty fees go to the artists.
I really enjoyed how into country music we get on Jamal Khadar’s episode, which is ostensibly about Amy and Mark Ronson’s cover of Valerie, and it was a dream to be able to include loads of different tracks which underscore our points on that episode. I love the links we make between the songs - it’s the remnants of the English Lit graduate in me.
There are two more episodes of the podcast to go, one featuring a singer who started out around the same time as Amy and remembers what it was like to play Camden back then (plus she dishes a lot of dirt on the music industry!) and the other episode is about my favourite Amy track, Tears Dry On Their Own. I’ll get those out in early November.
On to the usual questions... Where do you go to have a great time?
The Bill Murray, a tiny-two room pub and comedy club in Angel, covered in murals of legends such as Richard Pryor and Victoria Wood. It’s where I did my stand-up course in early 2020, where I first experienced the real high of a great gig, and where a lot of my loved ones first saw me do stand-up.
It’s also an incredible place to catch huge names before they go on tour, in an intimate room, for low, low prices. For instance, I saw Nish Kumar and Stewart Lee do early versions of their current shows at the end of 2021, for under a tenner each. Join their Patreon, it’s a really good one for early ticket drops and discounts and the like.
The Bill Murray threw a street party this summer with comedy on the rooftop from idols Aisling Bea, Sindhu Vee and Mark Silcox. You just sat on a hay bale in the street, craned your neck and had a laugh. It’s definitely a place to keep an eye on for innovations in comedy.
Whenever I pop down here, I bump into about three people I know, not including the lovely staff. They run a writing gym on Sundays (for free, anyone can sign up), and then you can catch shows all afternoon and evening, a sublime way to spend your day of rest. Look out for the monthly Dog Park, a free show that features TV-level names trying new material (but you’ve gotta sign up for tickets way in advance to make it into the room).
One of the best comedy stages in London, with a wonderful community feeling about it too. Look out for the cute hidden smoking garden.
Where do you go and always end up spending too much money?
Moshi Moshi in Liverpool Street Station. Yes, it’s inside the station, but stick with me on this. Ancient lore tells that this is the first restaurant where I had sushi, in the late 90s, as a teenager, although I had tried a plastic box of Sainsbury’s sushi and not hated it.
I was hooked from that first visit to Moshi Moshi, with my schoolfriend Eleni and her family (20 years later, we would take Eleni’s young sons to YO! Sushi in a nice circle-of-life moment). Moshi Moshi’s sushi is perfect, meltingly soft fish balanced on little fingers of rice that won’t fall apart in your chopsticks. Ever since then, I have always wanted more.
Now, the trick is to get a Member’s Card. That’s easy, you can do it on their website. Then look out for their offers. Every now and then, they’ll have a Member’s Offer where all plates are £2 or £3 if you go in and flash that Member’s Card. That will buy you, among other things, pair of perfect nigiri, or 4-5 slices of fresh sashimi, or 6 maki rolls (I’m fond of the cucumber ones, even though it doesn’t make sense to get them under the terms of this deal). Sit up at the belt on your own, order a glass of something nice and don’t keep a running total of plate prices in your head, just go for it.
Where do you go that can never close down, because if it does you might cry?
The branch of Budgens on Upper Street. Many moons ago, that was the last pitstop on the way home to fuel our youthful after-partying. If I happen to walk past it now, I feel old and young at the same time in the most bittersweet way. Never become a Nisa Local, my sweet friend.
Where do you go to be alone?
Tate Modern. I love the walk along the South Bank there and back, marvelling at the contrast between Shakespeare’s Globe and the building I’m going to, then getting there and discovering what’s going on in the Turbine Hall, then wandering the floors and deciding to take in a whole room, or just one piece and then moving on. I know I’ll always be back to see more.
Where do you go that’s within walking distance of your house?
Hyde Park. I know, right! I’m currently flat-sitting, and I can walk to Hyde Park. Ridiculous. I try to get at least one walk in there every day, because this living situation absolutely cannot last forever.
Where do you go to impress someone
A walk from my home to Hyde Park, or vice versa.
Where do you go to be romantic?
Hyde Park.
Where do you go when you can afford it?
Chotto Matte, the Japanese Peruvian restaurant, now with branches in Soho and Marylebone. Friends took me to the Soho one for a birthday a few years ago. There are gorgeous platters of sushi to share, incredible ceviche, stunning cocktails including lots of sours, so you can feel like you’re drinking a classic Peruvian Pisco Sour on a warm night in Miraflores.
I had been to Lima a few years before my visit, and maybe I’d gone on about it too much to my friends, but it was an amazing present, and reminder of my travels.
Where do you go if you want to feel comfortable?
The Victoria, Paddington. My uni friends and I get together for Fauxmas every December, our fake Christmas, and we’ve managed to nab The Victoria’s extremely festive private dining room for it a few times.
It’s just such a welcoming place, the food and drink is glorious, and they're cool with babies being part of the party too. This friendship group goes back 20 years, so we're pretty comfortable with each other, and I’m always happy to sit around The Victoria with them, my party hat on askew, with too many glasses of alcohol and a pulled cracker in front of me.
Where do you go if you want to switch off?
I plug in James Thompson’s Subterraneans podcast, which I discovered in this very newsletter. It’s about the world under London, but also about so much more, and I listen to it when I go for a lovely big walk in London.
At the moment, yes, it’s going to be through Hyde Park, but I travel about a lot for work and comedy gigs too. it’s such a great podcast to listen to while pounding the streets of London, occasionally the place he’s talking about and where you are line up and you get a little shudder of recognition. I think he should do a season just on Greenwich and the Isle of Dogs, surely the most haunted parts of London.
Where do you go to get inspired?
The Pleasance in Islington, and I’m not just saying this because I've got a show on there. I go for the comedy mostly, and I try to catch everything I couldn’t at Edinburgh Fringe. This year, that feels like a longer list than usual. I go to see my comedy pals’ hours and get proper show envy, which can lead to inspiration... The complex has that atmosphere of being in the Pleasance Courtyard in Edinburgh, but without the anxious tension that keeps your shoulders up by your ears for 3.5 weeks, more a warm, excited feeling that your show, or your friend’s show, has made it this far.
Where do you go to think?
Hyde Park.
You can find Suchandrika on Instagram and on Twitter.
You can get 20% off tickets to I Miss Amy Winehouse with the code LASTAMY.
If you know of anyone that you think would make a good interview for our ‘Where do you go?’ series then let us know on Londoninbits@gmail.com.
5 little bits
The cousin of Chris Kaba has said there was “no chase” before the the 24-year-old was shot dead by a Met firearms officer in Streatham in September. Speaking at a march for bereaved families whose relatives have died in custody, Jefferson Bosela said, “They said there was a chase, they said there was a pursuit – there was no pursuit, there was no chase, there were no lights, there were no sirens.”
The mayor has (again) called for a freeze on private sector rents, after new analysis out of City Hall showed “that between April and September 5,712 people were sleeping rough in London, a 21% increase compared to last year.”
If you’ve seen an ad for the cannabis delivery service, Dispenseroo on the Tube recently, don’t worry, you didn’t miss the memo about weed being legalised. They’re flyposted ads and the website is illegal. ITV interviewed the guy behind Dispenseroo and contacted the Met about the site… Who passed them on to the National Police Chiefs'‘ Council… Who passed them on to the British Transport Police, who haven’t got a clue.
The Guardian’s architecture and design critic, Oliver Wainwright has written a long and ultimately depressing critique of the West End’s latest crop of buildings, calling Soho Place (or #sohoplace as we’re supposed to call it) “the kind of building you might find on the edge of a 1980s business park in Slough” and the Now Building (in the Outernet development), “a gigantic walk-in billboard… featuring three times as much screen area as Piccadilly Circus, it is as if Times Square had collapsed in on itself”.
Meanwhile, in Saturday’s Guardian there was a feature telling “the story of five boozers forced to call last orders”. Two of the pubs are in London: the Lillie Langtry in Kilburn and Brixton institution, the Junction.