Notting Hill hands three weeks over to 200 free
indie films the same week a brand-new museum in Hackney Wick opens a
free Thursday-night DJ residency and Mayfair’s autumn gallery
season starts in earnest. An art fair turns out to be entirely about
food, and Saturday alone offers a day-to-night jazz festival, a
King’s Cross art car boot sale and the first plant fair the
Horniman has ever run in September.
A hand-checked shortlist of the week in London culture
· new every Thursday
Thursday 3 September is the week’s opening night: Portobello
Film Festival starts a free three-week run of indie and rare films the
same day V&A East launches upperground, a free DJ
residency on its upper-ground floor, and Alison Jacques opens a new
solo show on Cork Street. Saturday is the week’s crush point: Hackney Bridge runs
Jazz on Wick, a day-to-night, nine-stage jazz festival, while
Lewis Cubitt Square hosts the Art Car Boot Fair and the Horniman runs
its first-ever September Plant Fair — pick one corner of London
and stay there. Sunday closes M.C. Escher at Somerset House;
Tuesday closes the Saatchi Gallery’s celestial blockbuster and
opens Wilton’s new staging of The Elixir of Love the
same night.
One service note: Café OTO, Vortex Jazz Club and Kings
Place all ran in last week’s issue, so all three rest this week
— except for one Kings Place booking, an Intelligence Squared
talk that was simply too good to skip and sits in a different section
of the paper entirely. Grimeborn’s closing week at the Arcola is
cut for the same reason: a third consecutive issue for that stage
felt like one too many, however good the double bill.
The Gate Picturehouse & The Muse · Notting Hill · opens Thu 3 Sep, to 20 Sep · Free
Two hundred-plus independent films, rare documentaries
and music films screen free across three weeks. It’s a
counter-programme to the multiplex, running on Notting Hill’s
countercultural reputation rather than a sponsor’s budget.
Highlights include a retrospective for Laura Del-Rivo, Britain’s
first female beatnik author, and a 50-years-of-punk documentary
strand. Never featured here before.
Free and three weeks long — worth a wander any evening this month.
V&A East Museum · Hackney Wick/Stratford · Thu 3 Sep, 6.30–9.30pm (weekly Thursdays to 24 Sep) · Free
upperground is V&A East’s new DJ
residency, turning the museum’s upper-ground floor over to a
rotating cast of selectors every Thursday evening this month —
genre-fluid sets moving between techno, deep house, electro, ballroom
and breaks, no ticket needed. It’s the museum’s own
programme, not an add-on — a national collection turned into
somewhere you’d go on a Thursday night. First date of the run
lands the day this issue publishes.
A free way into a museum most of London hasn’t got to yet — no ticket needed.
Alison Jacques, 22 Cork Street · Mayfair · opens Thu 3 Sep, to 3 Oct · Free
A new solo show opens on Cork Street the same day this
issue publishes — Alison Jacques starting its autumn season a
week before the rest of the street catches up. Free, and an easy
pairing with Thaddaeus Ropac’s group show two streets over
(see Also Worth It).
Ladbroke Hall · Notting Hill · Sat 5 Sep, 2–10pm (Sun hours tbc on the fair’s own site) · Free entry, workshops £15–£35
Fifty-plus artists, chefs and designers treating food as
“a language for creativity, communication and cultural
exchange” — edible installations, tasting workshops,
screenings and an opening-night reception with poetry readings and
complimentary bites. Not a food festival with an art theme bolted on;
the fair’s own billing runs the other way round.
Hackney Bridge · Sat 5 Sep, noon–10.30pm · from £33.89 (Dice; not priced on the organiser’s own page)
A day-to-night, nine-stage jazz festival across Hackney
Bridge’s warehouse spaces, run by the teams behind Colour
Factory, Orii and Voices Radio — an independent production, not
a marketplace booking. The bill runs from D Double E and Zeñel
through Jas Kayser, Shae Universe and Ego Ella May, plus stage
takeovers from Apron Records and BBE Music, the latter marking its
30th anniversary.
Pick one stage and commit, or spend the day wandering between all nine.
Wilton’s Music Hall · Wapping · opens Tue 8 Sep, to 19 Sep · £12–£32 (concessions £12–£29.50)
Donizetti’s comic opera restaged with a new
English libretto, Wilton’s own atmospheric hall turned into a
lantern-strung village square with a chocolate-factory backdrop,
where Adina holds out and Nemorino pursues her. Wilton’s last
featured here in July — well rested, and this is exactly the
scale of comic opera that only works in a room this size.
Somerset House, Embankment Galleries South Wing · Strand · to Sun 6 Sep · from £16.50
150-plus original works spanning Escher’s
career — tessellations, impossible constructions, Day and
Night, Relativity — with interactive displays
unpacking the maths behind the illusions. Somerset House is warning
of 30-minute weekend queues even at a timed slot — last
weekend to catch it.
Saatchi Gallery · Chelsea · to Tue 8 Sep · from £13
A 24-hour journey from dawn to midnight across nine
exhibition spaces — Luke Jerram’s monumental sun
sculpture Helios, teamLab’s immersive Massless
Suns and Dark Suns, and 100-plus artists from Bridget Riley to
Henry Moore. Closes two days after Escher, so this is the week to
catch both.
Gagosian, Davies Street · Mayfair · to Sat 5 Sep · Free
Four Plexiglas sculptures blowing the surfboard motifs
from Alex Israel’s paintings up to architectural scale.
Gagosian’s own site returned a Cloudflare block on every
check this week, so the dates here are corroborated across two
independent art publications rather than read directly off the
gallery’s page — worth the hedge, since this is the
final weekend.