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This week in London you can attend the city’s first ever taco festival, explore the Design Museum’s next exhibition after hours, or work your way through a glass or two of plonk at London Wine Week. Make it count with the list below!
CENTRAL
Dark Matter! Dark Energy!, Institute of Education, Tue, free. Fancy yourself as the next Brian Cox? Brush up your physics knowledge at this evening of short talks all about dark energy and dark matter and how to measure it.
Ana Mendieta: Metamorphosis, Alison Jacques, Tue-Thu, free. This show is mainly photos of performances and long-ago eroded landscape sculptures, plus a handful of drawings, all of which explore the idea of change.
London Wine Week, various venues, all week, £10 wristband. Oenophiles rejoice! London Wine Week returns for 2017 with seven days of decanting vintages, decoding wine lists and spitting left, right and centre – white, red, rosé and bubbles therein.
You’re in Rude Health Week, various locations, all week, prices vary. Taking inspiration from the old English expression, ‘You’re in Rude Health Week’ is a festival of activities aiming to put a spring in your step.
Here and Now: London Portraits by Niall McDiarmid, Museum of London, all week, free. Captured over six years, the subjects in McDiarmid’s colour saturated pictures were photographed impulsively, creating a vivid outdoor portraits of the people who make up our city.
Negroni Week, various locations, all week, free. For seven days, hordes of bars across the city will be paying tribute to the iconic red bittersweet aperitif, including Nightjar, Oriole, Original Sin, Cahoots, Bungatini and Pizza Pilgrims.
NORTH
Tigercub, Dingwalls (Lock 17), Tue, £9. Catch the Brighton threesome performing psychedelic pop.
Tufnell Park Film Club: ‘What’s Up, Doc?’, The Star, Tue, £15 annual membership. Peter Bogdanovich’s homage to Hollywood screwball comedy gets its pace and slapstick timing spot-on.
Machine Gun Kelly, Koko, Wed, £24.50. Cleveland boy Richard Baker, aka MGK, offers up ultra quick-fire rhymes about girls and heritage.
‘Deposit’, Hampstead Theatre, all week, £12, £10 concs. Painfully true drama about the horrors of the London property market.
EAST
© Graham Morris. Kendal Mountain Festival
Richard Dawson, Rough Trade East, Tue, £10.99-£24.99. Contemporary, leftfield folk from the genius Newcastle-based singer-songwriter.
Kendal Mountain Festival, Rio Cinema, Wed, £15. A mix of award-winning films and talks from explorers like Dave Cornthwaite, who has skateboarded across Australia and paddleboarded down the Mississippi.
East End Film Festival: ‘Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle’, Rio Cinema, Thu, £11.50, £9.50 concs. It’s screening on the day of the election, which feels a tad late to us (unless you run to the polling booth after it’s done), but this documentary promises to reveal the grim truth about the death of social housing in this country.
SOUTH
London Taco Festival, Brixton Beach, Thu, £10. Now this is something to taco ’bout: London is getting its first ever taco festival, and it’s going to be rolled out on a rooftop beach in Brixton.
David Bowie Cheese and Wine Painting Evening, Balham Bowls Club, Thu, £50. Scoff down cheese and glug back wine while painting pictures of Aladdin Sane, one of David Bowie’s most iconic images, at this fun-filled art class.
‘Rebel Without a Cause’, BFI Southbank, Thu, £8-£8.80. James Dean’s finest film – hardly surprisingly, given that Nicholas Ray was one of the greatest ’50s directors.
Brockley Street Art Festival, various venues, all week, free. This community-run week-long festival will add some colour to Brockley with a range of artistic events and activities, bringing together south-east London’s vibrant arts community.
WEST
Per Kirkeby: Paintings and Bronzes from the 1980s, Michael Werner Gallery, Tue-Thu, free. Kirkeby's paintings are earthen-coloured palimpsests of stains, splatters, scrubbed washes, gouged lines and trowelled slabs.
‘Jam’, Finborough Theatre, Tue-Thu, prices vary. A teacher squares up to her former pupil in this tense two-hander.
Cartier in Motion Late Opening, Design Museum, Wed, free. Immerse yourself in the story of Cartier timepiece smithery and the invention of the modern wristwatch after hours in this Design Museum late.
‘Killology’, Royal Court Theatre, all week, £25, £12 Mon. The latest stunning exploration of violence from Gary Owen.
AND FINALLY
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