Battersea Arts Centre turns the real scars of its 2015 fire into a 35-minute Halloween horror, while a director sits in the room for one screening of his own 1990 thriller. Frieze week leaves two free gallery openings behind it — Cecilia Vicuña at Whitechapel, Justin Caguiat at the Serpentine. The Yard Theatre’s landmark reopening production takes its final bow, and Evan Parker brings three of free improv’s sharpest voices to Café OTO.
A hand-checked shortlist of the week in London culture · new every Thursday
Two free shows land on either side of Frieze, timed by the calendar rather than the fair: Cecilia Vicuña’s community-woven quipu at Whitechapel and Justin Caguiat’s first UK institutional show at the Serpentine — a Lead Pick and an Also, equally worth the trip. Away from all that: Danny Lee Wynter previews his new play at the Donmar ahead of its press night, Omar Shah opens a Filipino bakery-pizzeria in Kentish Town, and Dina Martina’s malfunctioning Halloween cabaret lands at Soho. Two one-nighters bookend the week — Mike Figgis in the room at The Garden Cinema, Evan Parker leading three of free improv’s sharpest voices at Café OTO — and the Yard Theatre takes its final bow on the production that reopened its own building.
No ideas or talks pick this week — the lecture circuit was just thin this fortnight. Soho Theatre and the Yard Theatre both repeat from last issue: Soho’s is a one-week seasonal booking, the Yard’s is literally its last weekend. Full source notes and what got cut are in the footer.
A new immersive horror from Immersive Octopus — the creative team behind Peaky Blinders: The Rise — built inside the still-unhealed scars of BAC’s 2015 fire. Thirty-five minutes, sold as pay-what-you-can from £16.
The only haunted house built from an actual fire.
Mike Figgis’s 1990 corruption thriller, with Richard Gere as the cop everyone suspects and Andy Garcia as the internal-affairs investigator closing in, followed by a Q&A with Figgis himself. One screening, the director in the room — part of a week at The Garden Cinema that also runs a Czech New Wave season and an Andrzej Žuławski retrospective.
A single public screening with the director answering questions afterwards — not a retrospective package, a conversation.
Evan Parker — the saxophonist who, with Derek Bailey, effectively wrote the vocabulary British free improvisation still uses — leads a one-off quartet with trombonist Steve Swell, bassist Mark Tokar and drummer Klaus Kugel. No record to promote, no anniversary to mark: four improvisers who rarely share a stage, assembled for one night.
One night only — this exact lineup won't repeat.
A suspended quipu — the knotted-cord form used by Andean cultures to record information — woven from dried plant matter and lightweight debris that local communities foraged and donated through an open call. Visitors keep adding to it. It hangs alongside Living Threads, Vicuña’s first full UK survey, so you get the archive and the ongoing, unfinished piece in the same visit.
An artwork that is still being made by the people who come to see it.
Omar Shah — the chef behind Belly, one of the city’s better-regarded Filipino restaurants — opens a bakery-by-day, pizzeria-by-night in a former hair-and-beauty academy. Laminated pastries and coffee in the morning; by evening, pizzas carrying mushroom adobo with porcini powder, and longanisa sausage with calamansi hot honey.
A second kitchen from a chef who's already earned the benefit of the doubt.
Diane Page directs Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem, fifty years after its first performance, with original music by Jammz — the production that reopened the Yard’s new 220-seat building in September. Final performances this weekend, in the space it was chosen to launch.