London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

Fringe preview: Collage magic show

A duo of award-winning magicians from the Korea – Yollin Lee and Daan Ho – is coming to dazzle your mind this summer. “Are we all the same?” “Are we connected subconsciously?” Human society is made up of various ethnicities, ideologies, personalities, and physical characteristics, much like a collage artwork. COLLAGE is a magic show … [Read More]

Korean performers at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe

A very varied selection of acts are coming to the Fringe this year: At That Time, Byeon Genre: Theatre (comedy, dark comedy) Group: Haddangse Venue 209: Greenside @ Nicolson Square – Lime Studio 11:25am , Aug 7-12, 14-19 | Book tickets Duration: 1 hour Japanese colonial era 1931: vertical drop shot of those crawling up … [Read More]

A review of the Korean cultural year 2019

A review of some of the highlights and trends in the Korean cultural year, primarily in London but also with half an eye to anything we might have seen elsewhere in the UK. The review is a personal one, inevitably skewed towards the events we managed to get to. Introduction This time last year I … [Read More]

The Illusionists: we went to see the Korean Manipulator, and ended up being fans of all seven performers

The events that LKL covers often involve high culture: dance, visual arts, contemporary or experimental music. So a family entertainment show aimed at a mainstream audience is somewhat outside our usual area of coverage. But that’s not to say we don’t appreciate supreme talent and skill when we see it. Last week we went along … [Read More]

Korean performances at Edinburgh Fringe 2019

A quick wordsearch of the 2019 Fringe catalogue provides the following items of Korean interest at the Fringe this year. LKL’s reviews of eight of the shows can be found here. The Happy Prince Children’s Shows (theatre, puppetry) Venue 21 | C venues – C aquila – temple 13:15 | Aug 1-11, 13-18, 20-26 | … [Read More]

Korean performers at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe

I make it that there are eleven Korean or Korea-related performances at this year’s Fringe, plus one workshop. It’s nice that Brush Theatre are putting in their regular appearance – always popular with the younger audience – and we have newcomers such as Korean-American stand-up comedian Olivia Rhee and, from Kazakhstan, telling the story of … [Read More]

Edinburgh Fringe showcase at Sadlers Wells

Following the success of last year’s Fringe preview, once again Sadler’s Wells hosts a night showcasing some of the Korean acts before they head to Edinburgh. Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2018 London Showcase 19:00, Friday 27 July 2018 (followed by a post-show reception) Lilian Baylis Studio | Sadler’s Wells | Rosebery Avenue | London, EC1R 4TN … [Read More]

Fringe review: Monkey Dance

This is a fun musical in which eight incredibly energetic and athletic performers leap around on stage to the musical accompaniment of a quintet of vocalists, beat-boxer and bass. There’s a loose story-line (not that it matters too much as the emphasis is on the music and action) in which an explorer comes to the … [Read More]

Brief Fringe review: Behind the Mirror

The Fringe version of Behind the Mirror, at 1 hour, is half an hour shorter than the full version that has successfully been performed in Korea for many years. In the version presented at the Fringe, the tale of Princess Pyonggang and General Ondal is told very briefly before a parallel story is told in … [Read More]

Think Korea 2006 – an introduction

Think Korea 2006 was an ambitious programme of cultural and other events organised by the Korean Embassy as part of the “Korea-UK Mutual Visit Year”. There was, I believe, a reciprocal series of UK-related events organised in Korea, but I never saw any publicity about it. One event I do know of: the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra … [Read More]

Korean performers at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe

A detailed mining of the Edinburgh Fringe website reveals twenty Korean performances plus one talk this year. Magic show Snap makes a return, along with the ever-popular drum show Tago, both part of a “Korean Season presented by AtoBiz Ltd” – who also bring new acts Kokdu and Ensemble Su. I must say I’m a … [Read More]