Still Friends After 25 Years: All The Friends Stuff Happening
Twenty five years ago comedy changed forever, we all made six friends for life, learnt exactly when to clap in a theme tune and fell in love with a show that couldn’t beeee any funnier. The show might not have been on telly for fifteen years, but its legend endures. So much so, that the quarter century of later we’re still going on about it, so if it’s like you’re always stuck in second grear, when it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even your year then here are some ways you can celebrate Friends’ 25th anniversary.
FriendsFest
The main event is FriendsFest, the not-so-cryptically-named Kennington festival celebrating all things Friends. Most notably, they’ve got the sets from the show, allowing guests to enter the very world inhabited by Joey, Chandler, Ross, Monica, Phoebe and Rachel (and the less important characters – looking at you Gunther). Play ‘Smelly Cat’ in Central Perk, ‘PIVOT’ on the staircase or just sit back and watch Friends episodes on a big screen. Head-scratchingly hosted in Kennington Park, the event is selling out fast, but don’t worry because they’re doing it all again at Christmas, same gig but with tinsel…
Where: Kennington Park, Kennington Park Road, Kennington, SE11 4BE
Website: www.friendsfest.co.uk
Ralph Lauren
In honour of their favourite (sort of) ex-employee Ralph Lauren have launched a Rachel Green collection. An array of Rachel’s 90’s ‘looks’, the collection will include polo-neck jumpers, leather trousers and nineties style suits with prices starting at £120 (or nothing, if you put it on Rachel’s Daddy’s credit card).
Where: 1 New Bond Street, Mayfair, W1S 3LU
Website: www.ralphlauren.co.uk
New York Bakery Co
Scottish bagel manufacturer New York Bakery Co sponsor Friends when it’s on the telly, and so who could be more appropriate (and/or invested) to create Friends-themed bagels. Available at FriendsFest, they’re bagel recipes to match to each Friends character so The Divorcee, The Free Spirit, The Shopaholic, The Big Eater, The Neat Freak and The Joker. We tasted them and they tasted exactly like their Friends characters. We imagine.
Website: www.newyorkbakeryco.com
Friends Sofa
My sofa goes on tour about once every three years when we move house (or when it finally gets taken down to the Wandsworth Recycling centre), but the sofa from Friends is a celebrity in it’s own right and it’s currently on a world tour. For real. The iconic sofa will be pitting in London for one day only this Sunday (22nd September), and will be in both Abbey Road (not sure why) and outside the London Eye.
Where: The London Eye (and Abbey Road)
Freindsical, Ashcroft Theatre Croydon
As if all the other Friends things didn’t feel like they were borderline parody (a Lego Central Perk? How is that normal?), someone decided to write an actual Friends parody, and called it Friendsical. Full disclosure, we’ve not seen it and the premise couldn’t necessarily beeeee any more dubious, but we’ll probably toddle down to Croydon and catch it when it comes to ‘London’ between 28th October and 2nd November 2019 in any case.
Lego Central Perk
A BluRay (yeah, we’re with it) edition of all the entire ten seasons Friends comes in at around £60. Save it. Instead splash out £64.99 on this very cool, bizarrely spenny Lego set instead and relive each episode in miniature Lego-y form. Lego have released the special Central Perk set to celebrate the anniversary and it includes the sofa, figurines of all the main characters plus actual Gunther.
Website: www.lego.com
Primark
Remember how Ralph Lauren are getting in on the whole Friends anniversary thing? Well if your budget’s a bit more Phoebe than Rachel then you should swing by Primark. The Primarni range of Friends stash includes t-shirts, sweatshirts, pyjamas slippers and, potentially in a branding exercise too far, a cafettiere.
Website: www.primark.com
