‘Out of tune and out of key’: Covent Garden’s buskers fight back against bid to silence them

Performers say Westminster council move to enforce licences and restrict acts’ volume, staging and props threatens a centuries-old London tradition

The incongruously tropical sounds of The Girl From Ipanema float through the chill afternoon air in Covent Garden as shoppers pass a couple of buskers performing an inspired rendition of the bossa nova classic.

In front of the young singer and the guitarist accompanying her is the guitar’s case, holding a handful of coins. Little is added to it as they run through Misty, Fly Me to the Moon and a haunting Silent Night. But their efforts aren’t unappreciated. Dancing around them are twins Hubert and Harold Pereira, connoisseurs of street performers. Hubert says London has good ones, but in New York and other US cities, “they’re better because they’re bigger”.