London Literature Festival is back to celebrate the power of the written and spoken word’. Its 2024 line-up is as stacked as always, no matter what your literary tastes. Head down to the Southbank Centre during its run to celebrate first-time writers and the inspiration they’ve taken from the capital at ‘Debut London Literature’ and discover a wealth of fresh poetry talent at ‘New Poets Collective Showcase’. Big names like Russell Kane, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Rupert Everett and Richard Dawkins will all take part in the festival, alongside kid-friendly events like ‘Alphabet Soup’ and ‘The Elmer Adventure’.
Autumn has well and truly arrived in London, which means as well as conker games, golden leaves and comfort food, spooky season is upon us. Dark nights, harvest moons and foggy mornings are the perfect backdrop for the strange, macabre holiday of Halloween and London is gearing up for it in style with a bunch of suitably eerie, hair-raising events and things to do.
Hear uncanny tales on ghost tours at historic institutions, watch blood-soaked vintage horror films at the city’s indie cinemas, walk around spine-tingling light shows at Kew Gardens or stay up late at Halloween-themed club nights from institutions like The Cause and Club de Fromage.
On top of all the uncanny shenanigans, there are also plenty of cultural treats happening in London this week. London Literature Festival is back with a wealth of author talks, panel discussions and special events. Trafalgar Square will be taking over the largest Diwali celebrations in the city and the London East Asian Film Festival is showing the freshest cinema from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, China, and more. Plus, there are also some acting heavyweights gracing London’s stages. Mark Strong and Lesley Manville are the leads in a political thriller-themed production of the Greek tragedy ‘Oedipus’ directed by Robert Icke, while Adrian Brodey stars in ‘The Fear of 13’, a stage version of a 2015 documentary by British filmmaker David Singleton, which tells the story of Nick Yarris, a Pennsylvania man who spent 22 years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit.
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