Category Archives: culture

Getting Classy in Vauxhall

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As amazing as it is, only a few weeks ago none of us had heard of Wordle, Duolingo or, god help us all, Partygate. Now they seem to be dominating our lives at the expense of getting out and going things. If you fancy building those brain cells in a different way, we suggest the upcoming ‘Classical Vauxhall’ series of concerts at St. Mark’s Church in Oval. The press release boldly describes it as ‘a four day festival of live music and song, featuring top artists and four centuries of composers’. By that last comment let’s hope it doesn’t entail digging people out of the ground.

Classical Vauxhall returns on 10 – 13 February and is live after a year of streaming. We had friends who went in 2020 and they described it as both amazing and great fun.  Festival Director and the brains behind it Fiachra Garvey is joined by artists Elizabeth Llewellyn, Kangmin Kim, and Leonard Elschenbroich with pianist Alexei Grynyuk. We actually have no idea who any of these people are – But– we have seen some of their work on YouTube and it’s remarkable. Elizabeth Llewellyn and her great voice are here..

The concept behind these five concerts is to put on shows that are varied, lively, and accessible to people who (like us) are not habitues of the Royal Opera House. Each night is set to a theme, from Love and Loss to Brahams and feature a range of artists doing short pieces. We are particularly fascinated by ‘The Royal Opera House is Burning, Late Night Drag’ on 13 February which bills itself as a ‘classical drag opera like no other’ with works from Les Mis and Wicked.  

Tickets are £22.15 so not exactly cheap, but a great way to support local culture and artists who have probably not had much work for the past two years. And imagine the one-upmanship you can have with your friends who sat at home watching a TV show about Katie Price doing her house up. 

Romeo and Juliet at Southwark Playhouse

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We recently made a visit to the soon to be relocated Southwark Playhouse in Elephant and Castle to see a reworking of ‘Romeo and Juliet’. This production is set in Brixton (a popular neighbourhood south of us) in 1981 with a backdrop of Thatcher, The Specials and Madness. If these names mean nothing to you please ask your parents and feel free to read on. 

In this production the Montagues and Capulets become rival council houses. The presence of pop music has the potential to make the production has the cheesy, but it is subtly done and used in the background. The play sticks almost entirely to the original script, but manages to weave into it a fair degree of humour and levity and the odd bit of swearing and slang. One monologue is delivered while a women is folding laundry and asking audience members to help her. And when talking about Juliet, Paris and Romeo have a bad habit of condoms popping out of their pockets. Exceptionally strong characters are Yinka Awani as a Friar Laurence determined to make a wedding happen come what may, and Fiona Skinner as a hilarious Lady Capulet who at the end of the day just wants to have giant piss up for Juliet instead of a wedding.

This production is part of Southwark Playhouse’s ‘Shakespeare for Schools’ project, will enables over 2000 Southwark kids to see the play for free during a series of matinees, but hopefully with the fucks and shits taken out. This year Southwark Playhouse will be moving to the top of Kennington lane, in the giant and strangely named ‘Uncle’ high-rise. While this has been in the works for ages, we’ve been informed that the move is imminent. 

Romeo and Juliet is on now until 5 February and tickets can be booked here. There are six characters playing 13 roles, so it pays to pay attention. This is a very fast paced production and comes in at 1:45 with no interval, so get a large drink to take in from the very fun café.  And to the bosses at Runoff HQ, we too had a large drink but this counts as a business meeting, like it or not 

White Bear Theatre

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With our New Year resolution of daily marathon walks not quiet going to plan, we’ve decided to pursue our second goal – to attend more theatre. Last night we hopped  over to the White Bear Theatre Pub to catch a play called ‘A Final Act of Friendship’ which kicks off a season of exciting new theatre at our little and oft overlooked local playhouse. 

A Final Act of Friendship concerns two young men who have recently graduated from drama school. Caught in an industry where one ethnicity is favoured over another, it explores aspects of white privilege, alienation, communication and a human desire for connection that transcends race. The story is told in a semi autobiographical manner but does not come across as trying to teach a lesson to the audience. The residual story is that we impose many barriers in getting intimate with people, made all the more graphic when getting close to people has been inhibited over the past two years. 

White Bear Theatre is totally independent and not associated with the Young’s owned White Bear Pub downstairs. Your ticket gets you 10% off food, but we can’t really recommend the food there unless you like your dinner cooked by a sous chef named ‘Mike ro Wave’. Having said that, it is fun to have a drink before the show and peruse the Kennington/Oval/Vauxhall paraphernalia festooning the walls. The theatre itself is a very intimate and almost immersive experience. In fact, on a recent outing the naked people getting gouged with shards of glass on stage seemed almost personal. To make people safe they have reduced seating and the venue is very well ventilated.  

A Final Act of Friendship runs tonight (13 January) and through to Saturday and tickets are still available. This is the first of a whole season of other short plays which are an interesting mixture of new writing, horror, politics and comedy. The tickets are £12 (£10 concessions). These are all one acts so if you don’t like what you’ve seen you can just toddle off home and forget it ever happened. 

A Local Victory

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If it was possible we would buy all of our readers a colourful Christmas gift. Unfortunately, we once again failed to get a bonus this year or any other kind of appreciation from Runoff management. Well, unless you count Monday morning when Phil from finance shouted ‘here’s your lot’ and threw a handful of Quality Street into our cubicles before walking away.  What we can give you, therefore, is a present that will enhance our lives in other ways. 

Lambeth County Court has stood proudly near Kennington Cross for almost a century. It’s functional life came to an end in 2017 and its future was very much in doubt. It was tantalizingly shut from public view after that with the exception of  two occasions, which we chronicled in 2019 and earlier this year. During this time the Duchy of Cornwall, who owns the property, cynically applied for the building to be immune from listing with the plan to convert it into……you guessed it……luxury flats, with the added indignity of an extra floor plopped on top. This would of course entail gutting the building and destroying the original, period courtrooms.  

We’ve always had a passion for the Courthouse, but we’ve given our opinion about planning consent before and let’s just say it took the better part of a year to put that toothpaste back in the tube so we weren’t doing that again. However, to the rescue came the 20th Century Society who gave advice (read, pressure) to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to list the building and after a great deal of exertion the building was granted Grade II status, ensuing that it will remain intact. We’re happy that the Society used some of our images on their website. 

At the moment part of the building is used as studios for artists affiliated with City and Guilds. In our little crystal ball the Courthouse could perhaps become a gallery or studio space for everyone in the community to enjoy in perpetuity. Everyone needs a place to live, but they also need a place to explore. Merry Christmas……

History and Cameras

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Last weekend our newish MP, Florence Eshamoni, opened the spanking new ‘History Hut’ in Kennington Park close to the tennis courts. Formerly a seating area frequented by gentlemen who like to enjoy an outdoor beverage,  the rest stop has been transformed by the installation of eight boards celebrating the vitality and diversity of our area. The boards cover areas from royalty to hangings, cricket to Chartists, and Van Gogh to WW1. If you are an astute reader you’ll be aware that we have written about many of these things before *collective office high five*.  Well worth a pre-Christmas perambulation to work off those extra calories 

The boards also mention a little known but fascinating tattle of trivia taken from the estates around Greater Kennington. The strange railings that you see around many estates are not actually railings at all, but repurposed stretchers from WW2. They were placed in storage by the Civil Defense Corps until the 1960’s in case of a nuclear (!) attack. We wrote about them in 2019. 

Camera Club

We really know very little about the Camera Club other than it has been there for years and we know very little about it. It is actually one of the oldest photography clubs in the world, and the site in Bowden Street acts not only as a studio but also an exhibit space for members. Until 25 January the gallery is having its annual Winter Member’s Exhibition and it is totally free. The photos offer a poignant overview of the highs and lows we’ve all faced in 2021. The very friendly staff on hand can even tell you how you can become a member yourself if you are the snappy sort. 

X-Mas Fun in Greater Kennington

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We’re here to tell you about FOUR fun upcoming activities to get you feeling festive and optimistic. The first is the North Lambeth Christmas Fair tomorrow (4 December) from 12 to 6.  Set in the stunning grounds of Lambeth Palace, just the venue itself reason to go, as it is almost never open to common folk like us. We’ve never been to this fair, but the press release states that there will be a raffle and big prize draw. Also expect it to involve festive stalls, games, music, local people selling food and wares, and general revelry. While not exclusively, this event is largely geared towards making kids merry and active. So if you don’t have kids you might want to resort to the bar to keep you sane. And if you have kids you might want to resort to the bar to keep you sane. 

Over in Elephant they have a whole range of interesting and fun events taking place at the new, and slightly surreal, Elephant Park. Tomorrow what is being advertised as an ‘Instagrammable Grotto’ event is taking place, which to us sounds like it involves pics of photoshopped subterranean elves with lip implants but  as it also involves kids, hopefully not. There are also Caribbean steel drummers to keep you happy and the lovely independent shops from the now extinct shopping centre for spontaneous gift ideas. A lot more is going on this month if you glance at the website. 

And if all is merriment wasn’t enough, the artistic commune over at Pullen’s Yards in Walworth will be having a studio Open Day all weekend and a good chance to see what they get up to in their studios and perhaps even pick up a unique and quirky gift, like a fork fashioned into a tiara. Perfect fo r a loved or just for us. It is totally free and fascinating. And our mate at the very local Orbit Beers will be there!

And finally, on Wednesday Nine Elms Arts Ministry launched the first window of its giant Advent Calendar. Local artists, schools and community groups have worked together to create 24 Advent windows with support from Wandsworth Council and other sponsors. Sadly, when one of the boxes open it doesn’t reveal a giant Santa that you can bite the arm off of, but instead are highly decorated windows that reveal lovely, local made things one day at a time. The trek starts in Nine Elms and takes you out of Greater Kennington and into Battersea, so you’ve been warned. The route and all you need to know can be found here.

Lambeth Palace Library

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Located at the very pinnacle of the Runoff catchment area, today finally witnessed the opening of  Lambeth Palace Library. Now you might be thinking ‘say WHAT, a nine storey library has just opened in Greater Kennington’ and you can be forgiven for the oversight. The massive structure has been carved out of just 3% of the archbishop’s garden and lies next to Archbishop’s Park, although it’s easy to miss. The structure is a victory of understatement with ponds and tweedy looking brick crosses. This belies the gravity of a building created as a protector of manuscripts and designed as a fortress against the pesky factors that threaten them such as light, water, and humans. However, it is also a museum so today we checked it out for you. As The Guardian did nearing completion last year.

Treasures of the Library 1 is a petite, pop up exhibition in vitrines on the first floor and includes an early Gutenberg bible, brilliantly illuminated manuscripts, a letter about the madness of King George, a bible used at the Queen’s coronation, and something called the ‘Lambeth Apocalypse’. Which, as it turns out, does not refer to Sunday mornings outside of nightclubs in Vauxhall.  The interactive displays on the ground floor are very fun and give you a chance to explore the archive in more detail, as does their website. 

This is a small exhibit but one that will expand in the new year. The variety of displays is endless, so something for that pocket diary that we’re always nagging you about. It is open rather inconveniently Monday to Friday 9 to 5. But it’s free, so there you go. The reading room is also available if you have a pass and require more research. Or if you are even more nosey than we are. 

The IWM Gets a Big Facelift

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Today we visited the brand new £30 million Holocaust/World War 2 Galleries at our very own world class Imperial War Museum. The IWM has always dedicated galleries to these events, but when the museum was closed they worked tirelessly to transform the areas into a much larger (over 3000sq. metres) space with much more interactive content. What they have done well here is what the IWM has always excelled at. Namely, focussing on the lives of people impacted by an event as opposed to the event itself.  

The Holocaust galleries commence with an overview of Jewish life in central Europe in the 1920/30s. Brightly light rooms tell the stories of families and workers getting on with school, commuting and bar mitzvahs in the face of increasing discrimination. A transition room explains with frightening logic how Hitler became chancellor in 1933 and how life for Jews became incrementally more impossible as Germany grew closer to global conflict. The fate of Jews from 1939 to post war Europe is subsequently not presented in the graphic and grainy black and white images of death we have all seen before. Rather, we see photos of living  green fields which thrive in places like Sobibor and Treblinka in Poland. Interwoven is the lived experience of survivors whose collective memories will soon become extinct, but have been persevered by the IWM. 

The WW 2 galleries are a bit more of a task to take in, as they cover everything from action in the Africa to the Philippines. A whole museum could be dedicated to this, but IWM do their best to distil this into smaller elements focussed on human experiences on the front line and also people impacted on the home front. Various campaigns and victories are outlined and poignant detail is given to the efforts of troops and civilians on D Day. The huge scope of these galleries are made more accessible by the integration of devices such as a mock up of an early 40’s British home, clothing, music, air raid shelters, and the effect of the war on children who were evacuated from London. The final rooms are cogently dedicated to something usually overlooked by war memorials. Namely, how the world repaired itself after the event. 

For those of you who are reluctant to visit the IMW out of a concern that it celebrates conflict and warfare, let us assure you that it doesn’t. As the galleries above indicate, it is more of a museum dedicated to collective survival in times of crisis and individual resilience in times of oppression. As conflict and warfare very much exist on this planet as we speak, it also introduces concepts of how we can help war ravaged people in the present.  

The two galleries are permanent and free but are ticketed. You can get tickets on the day but to avoid waiting around it might be a good idea to book. If you are wondering about taking kids please not that these galleries are partially designed for children, but for under 11’s it might be a good idea to speak to them about what they are about to see.

While you’re swishing around the museum building brain cells you can also check out a small photographic exhibit from Oscar nominated photographer/filmmaker Wim Winders taken at ground zero in the weeks after the atrocity. The photos are large format and quite powerful. Afterwards we fully approve going to a Greater Kennington  pub to obliterate all of those brain cells you just obtained. 

City & Guilds MA Show

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The pinnacle of the Greater Kennington arts calendar is upon us again in the guise of the MA Show over at City and Guilds in Kennington Park Road. Now if you’re thinking ‘hang on, didn’t I just go to that’ then you’re thinking about the BA Show in August, so keep up. The MA show is a more mature and subdued affair, usually, so don’t expect any swing sets wrapped fur which talk to you. But nevertheless expect a few surprises.  

The MA programme at C&G focuses on fine art and does not include other speciality areas such as carving, conservation or restoration. Most of the artists are on hand and are more than happy (we’re talking, almost dying) to talk about their work. An obvious theme this year was isolation and vulnerability, and this was expressed in various ways. One artist worked exclusively in parsley (yes, the herb) and another one we got chatting do expressed herself by making doll sized dioramas filled with dust. Another crafted his work by a very heavy reliance on table salt. 

More traditional mediums are mostly used across the vast Georgian buildings of the school and it is easy to lose yourself as you wander about. A number of artists are working in sculpture and some pure drawing, but the majority of works are on canvas by use or oils, acrylics, or watercolour. Some interesting deviations are present, such as an artist who likes to depict 50’s ‘femme fatales’ in oil on Perspex (below). Some of the works are large format, others miniscule. The volume of work on show can be a bit overwhelming, but the impression is of a well curated and at times stunningly beautiful body of works. 

The MA show is open daily (other than Monday) from 10 to 5 until Saturday, 23 October. Even if you don’t really care for art it is totally free and a fun way to whittle away a lunch break, even if you’re not the arty sort.  

City and Guilds London Art School has a very long and fascinating connection to Greater Kennington. Before being in its present location it was in Vauxhall, with one its early patrons being the Doulton Pottery factory who used their students to embellish their works. With a strong contingent of female students, it also has links to the Suffragette movement in the early 20th century. You can even but some of these works on Ebay!

Greater Kennington’s First Skyscraper

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Long before the behemoths of Vauxhall and the impending towering bewilderments of Elephant, there existed Draper House in Newington Butts, where Kennington meets Elephant and Castle. Nestling shyly next to the ‘who switched the fans off’ Strata, the Draper Estate was built in the Brutalist style in 1965, and when Draper House was finished it was the tallest residential block in London. If you look up at the block today this seems almost unbelievable.  

In order to meet the varying needs of a devastated community post WW2, radical architects Kenneth Campbell and Hubert Bennett were commissioned to create a building consisting of 141 flats and maisonettes. In the manner of Le Corbusier, the idea was that ‘nothing is too good for the ordinary man and woman’ and the building had wide corridors and the unique addition of fire escapes. Campbell and Bennett transcended traditional building methods by installing a cladding of storey high slabs of white Italian marble.  Another unbelievable reality when we look at the cladding of public housing today. 

We were made aware of the interesting existence of Draper House after reading that one of its original residents just moved out after 56 years. Falling into a typical Runoff rabbit hole, we read the interesting stories of current residents such as Ian, who has lived in the building for 36 years and raised his family there. He notes that many residents have lived there for decades and over the years has progressively reflected the multi cultural dynamic that gives Elephant it’s energy. 

Being tall and notable does have a few downsides, and for many years Draper House had a darker side as it was known as the suicide capital of London. Those days are long gone and the multicultural essence persists at ground level with such treats as a Latin American mini mall, a Brazilian hair salon, a Chinese tea house, and two of our favourites eateries – Italian ‘Theos’, and the wonderfully named ‘After Taste’.