Things To Do In London This Weekend: Oct 26-28
Fear not! Your what, wear, when – sorted
THE FOODIE-DANCEY ONE: Night Tales Halloween Party
WHAT: There really is no more apt a DJ for a Halloween do than Skream (especially if DJ Freddie Kruger and MC Hannibal Lecter aren’t available). And he’s bringing his on-point mix of house, bass and techno to the decks for Night Tales’ first Halloween bash at Hackney’s Bohemia Place, which also offers London’s biggest covered terrace, LED lights, Japanese food courtesy of Fat Baby, and, we quote, ‘seriously freaky production’. Ooh.
WEAR: It’s sort-of outdoorsy, so we say channel Mr Kruger. Say what you will about the man, he knew how to wear a jumper.
WHEN: 26 Oct 6pm-4am; £11
Night Tales, 14 Bohemia Place, E8 1DU
THE SPANDEX-CLAD ONE: Mariah and Friendz: Screamlover
WHAT: We don’t want a lot for Halloween, we don’t even wish for snow… All we want for Halloween is a Mariah Carey-tribute-drag-circus-dance-party with a fright-night theme. And you’ll never guess what?! There’s exactly that happening at Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club. Expect horror movie-themed drag from the likes Baby Lame, Crystal Beth and Freida Slaves. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘she came to slay’.
WEAR: Really? C’mon. We’re hardly going to say cardies and sensible shoes, are we?
WHEN: 26 Oct; £10
Screamlover, Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, 42-44 Pollard Row, E2 6NB
THE HEADS-DOWN ONE: Hydra at Printworks
WHAT: There are times when you want to dispense with frippery and just get down to some serious dancing in a former industrial printworks. And for such times, we give you, well, The Printworks. Filling the mighty press halls with mightier beats will be Norwegian disco force Todd Terje, acid-techno adventurer Roman Flügel and old-school legend DJ Spinna. Monstrous, indeed.
WEAR: You can either 1: make an effort to look scary, or 2: accept that after 10 hours of raving, you’re going to look scary anyway. Whichever.
WHEN: 27 Oct 12midday-11pm; from £30
Printworks, 1 Surrey Quays Road, SE16 7PJ
THE FREAKY-FABULOUS ONE: Dark Circus Party
WHAT: Roll up, roll up! Bid bye-bye to all that is ordinary, ta-ta to everything traditional. For when you enter the haunted big top of the Dark Circus Party, anything could happen. Well, as long as it involves spinning aerialists, caged curiosities, fire-breathers, sword-swallowers, treacherous trapeze acts, bizarre sideshow freaks, burlesque shows and masque balls, plus DJs, cocktails and dancing to the wee hours. OK, we go back to our initial assessment:
ANYTHING could happen.
WEAR: Ringmaster top and tails, burlesque bustiers, leopard-print leotards, animal masks and all things femme fatale. There’s a no outfit, no entry policy – so it’s literally go big or go home.
WHEN: 27 Oct 9pm-3am; £40
THE MASSIVE ONE: Drumcode at Tobacco Dock
WHAT: Billed as ‘London’s definitive Halloween party’, there’s nothing about this that isn’t big. Scandinavia’s biggest techno label (Drumcode) is filling one of London’s biggest venues (Tobacco Dock) with the biggest names in underground dance (label boss Adam Beyer, Alan Fitzpatrick, Charlotte de Witte, Slam). You can bet your last pumpkin that the beats are not going to be medium-sized.
WEAR: Did you not read that line-up? Make sure your zombie costume is breathable, for God’s sake. And do we really need to say flat shoes?
WHEN: 27 Oct 12pm-10.30pm; £49.50
Tobacco Dock, 50 Porters Walk, E1W 2SF
THE RETRO-ROOFTOP ONE: Halloween at Skylight
WHAT: Just because, as legend has it, Halloween is the time of year when the barrier between the mortal world and the ghosts, ghouls and gawd-knows-whats is at its thinnest, that doesn’t mean we have to scare the bejeezus out of each other, does it? Exactly. That’s why the cheerfully cheesy ’90s club classics party at Skylight atop Tobacco Dock – with its retro-fabulous tunes, special seasonal cocktails, and prize for the cleverest costumes, sounds good to us.
WEAR: Hmm, cleverest costume, you say? Dig out your Albert Einstein garms for the win.
WHEN: 26 Oct; from £15 inc cocktail on arrival
Skylight, Rooftop at Tobacco Dock, Pennington Street E1W 2SF
designmynight.com/london/whats-on/food-drink/halloween-at-skylight
THE CHI-CHI ONE: Malice in Wonderland at Rumpus Room
WHAT: When you think about it, following a white rabbit down a reeeally deep hole and coming out just to be faced with a child-killer queen, a cat making dubious fashion choices and possibly Johnny Depp is actually pretty terrifying. And the team at Rumpus Room clearly agree, as for Halloween they’re transforming their chic rooftop bar at The Mondrian into a dark take on Alice in Wonderland, promising spectacles from ‘the gruesome to the titillating to the downright scandalous’. This sure ain’t Disney, folks.
WEAR: Think Alice as played by Dita von Teese and you’re getting there.
WHEN: 27 Oct 7.30pm-2am; £40 inc welcome cocktail
Rumpus Room, The Mondrian, 20 Upper Ground, SE1 9PD
…AND FOR THE TOO COOL FOR GHOUL: Ben Eine: Everything Starts Somewhere
WHAT: Halloween deniers, take haven among the hip arty folk of east London. For here you shall find no plastic masks (pfft) or silly string (double pfft), but an uber-cool homecoming exhibition by one of the kings of street art. Filling StolenSpace Gallery with his trademark typographic paintings, Ben Eine serves up bold, colourful irreverence and sharp wit aplenty. But this time he has a new trick, too: namely sculpture, turning his signature ‘S’ into a huge metal 3D sculpture for the first time. Treat.
WEAR: You don’t need to bother with costume: just say you’ve come as Banksy. No one can disprove the accuracy of your outfit, at least.
WHEN: 26 Oct-18 Nov; free
StolenSpace Gallery, 17 Osborn Street, E1 6TD
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