Category Archives: events

BCO Christmas Estates Tour

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Orchestral music is often inaccessible to many people for a variety of reasons, but we’re about to be blessed yet again this weekend in Walworth for a different kind of Christmassy concert that are free and open for everyone! 

Brixton Chamber Orchestra is a diverse group of 25 Brixton based instrumentalists who provide and create music across a range of genres including…wait for it….classical, disco, gospel, grime, rap, swing, pop, drum & bass and others, and often have guest vocalists. They usually ply their trade in community halls and churches in Brixton, which explains why they’re not on our radar. And they’re not in Greater Kennington. But they are now.

Funded by Arts Council England and, surprisingly, by Lambeth Council, BCO is in the midst of a Christmas estates tour of 11 estates in Lambeth. They will be gracing us with their presence on Saturday in the Brandon Estate (those large buildings at the back of Kennington Park). Saturday, 21st December @ 3:30 PM 
Maddock Way, London SE17 3NH 

This looks like it might be outside, so stop by the offie your way to pick up your favourite Christmas tipple.

We attended this event in 2022 and it was great fun. Each show is unique and they’ve been known to feature guests musicians. They also encourage folks to get up and sing along, which should be made easier with that bottle you bought from the offie. And if this is sounding like a kids event, trust us it isn’t. Not that there is anything wrong with kids, a few Runoff staff were once kids themselves. If you can’t make it or don’t live in Greater Kennington there are more dates on their website.

Did we mention it’s free? Did we add that we love free? The clip below is a summer tour from a few years ago but lets you know what they’re about.



Cleaver Sq. Charity Carols 2024

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The annual Cleaver Square ‘Carols in the Square’ takes place this Thursday (19th) from 19:30 and the best part is that you don’t even have to live in Cleaver Square to take part! Or even look like you live in Cleaver Square. It is open to everyone and has raised over £10,000 over the years for local charities, so bring a few extra pounds if you can, but they also have a card reader. Also bring your mug to save the hard volunteers a bit of time.

We attended the Carols last year and it was great fun. We were treated to homemade mince pies, mulled wine, and sang along with the lovely Fever Pitch choir, who will be performing at 20:00. Apparently wearing a funny Christmas hats is a tradition so you’ve been warned. In order to fit in with the posh Cleaver Square set, we’ll be digging out our flat cap, red corduroys and beaten up Barbour jacket left over from some Madonna/Guy Ritchie themed fancy dress party we attended in 2007. 

Gasworks Gallery. Or is it a Mirage?

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When we take a needed break from our subterranean office beneath Kennington Cross we like to inspect the offerings at the never boring Gasworks Gallery in Oval. Previous exhibits have seen the space transformed into a gay cruising area, and another featured a giant Styrofoam coffin. The current show is called ‘Mirage’ and was created by Indonesian artist and filmmaker Riar Rizaldi.

The exhibit is composed of two film reels, and the first is Mirage – Eigenstate. It weaves together analogous investigations into the nature of reality, positioning western science as just one of many worldviews. The film then explores different interpretations of reality, from Sufi mysticism through to theories of quantum mechanics. We frankly have no idea what any of this means but the film is certainly nice to look at, with lots of Arabic fonts and words spinning around. 

The second film is called Mirage – Metanoia which is set in a kind of 1970’s Hanna-Barbera retro cosmic animation, where astronauts survive rocket crashes and pixie/cricket creatures wax philosophical about the presence of god in atoms, as you do. Again the artist visits Sufi metaphysics by means of a lady crawling out of a crater. Both films are presented in an immersive setting which includes a lovely Persian tiled floor and a wall mural based on the teachings of a Persian mystic. 

If this sounds like your kind of thing, and we really have no reason why it wouldn’t,  Gasworks are putting on a symposium called ‘Strangelet’ over the weekend of 16 – 17 November and tickets are available on their website. The press release describes the symposium as ‘a weekend of presentations, talks, screenings and performances that are categorised as gharib which means ‘weird or strange’ in Sufism (no, we didn’t know that off the top of our heads).

They are also hosting a much less strange sounding breakfast exhibition tour on 27 November and tickets for that on are their website

Riar Rizaldi – Mirage is on now until 22 December and is totally free. And they have a lovely, popup giftshop as well. 

Kachori, Betty & Joan

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Karchori 

It is now established dogma that a place is in trouble when they start to have bingo nights. And they’re in even more trouble if anything they do involves a drag queen. So when our friends over at Kachori, the newish Indian in Elephant Park that we checked out last year, announced they will be having a drag bingo night, we knew that something very dire was happening and here’s how you can help. 

Drag bingo is hosted by Party with Ginger and for £45 a head you have a two course, drag inspired meal (???!!) with free flowing prosecco. On top of a £10 admission this comes up to £110 a couple. Now we would never tell you how to spend your dosh, but for that kind of money we reckon you could get Ginger herself over to your gaff to rustle up a few curries while shouting out numbers. However,  this for a good cause so please support them if you can by popping in for a poppadum or a drink. Drag Bingo at Karchori is on 30 October and tickets can be grabbed on their website. 

Another reason we can’t allow Kachori to fall by the wayside is that its perhaps the only restaurant in London where you can eat the table wear. We kid you not. 

BETTY AND JOAN

Staying in Elephant Park and remaining on drag, a new bar and comedy club is opening and we couldn’t be more excited. The bar is listed as being gay, with cabaret and drag, but if that’s not your handbag the comedy appears to be more mixed. They’re having an opening party on 11 December and if you want to join the waiting list then enter your details over on their website. They fling open their majestic doors later this year, so stick that in the little sparkly diary we’ve been telling you to buy for ages. 

Local Heroes of Kennington

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This Saturday (5 October) is London Guiding Day, and we’re here to guide you about a fascinating walking tour around Greater Kennington that will be undertaken throughout the day, brought to you by the good folks at Lambeth Tour Guides  

Local Heroes Kennington is our representation for Guiding Day, and reading from the press release ‘The Kennington tour will introduce you to suffragette art students, the son of a slave who rallied the working classes, a Black Prince and a little tramp, ending at Oval with some trailblazing cricketers’. The press release also encourages people to leave the area in order to ‘discover more tours around London’. We don’t encourage this. 

The tour will include notable and notorious denizens of Kennington including Jemina Durning Smith, Charlie Chaplin, the Black Price, and a whole bunch of ancient people on Instagram who we don’t recognise but who must have been very important. We’ve been notorious in Greater Kennington for over a decade now, so it’s curious that no one knocked on the door of our subterranean bunker to interview us. And we, unlike the lot above, even have the distinct advantage of still being alive. But we’ll get over it.  

There will be six identical tours running on the hour and they meet at Kennington Station and can be booked here.  They are free, but these people are professional tour guides and a tip (a fiver will do) will go a long way to expressing your satisfaction. 

Fun Event This Weekend at Bee Urban

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We might be taking the word ‘fun’ a bit far here but this event on Saturday certainly sounds bonkers so of course we’re interested. Of the information available by the QR code, the event ‘is grounded in spoken and written and spoken language’ with live performances including a jazz band. This is all sounding a bit New Agey to us, which begs the question of bees actually getting involved in the event. We’re thinking along the lines of synchronised stinging.

Multipolyscripttoscribble (?) takes place this Saturday at Bee Urban in Kennington Park

The Lambeth Fringe 2024

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Frequent readers are aware that we make recommendations to travel outside Greater Kennington very rarely and do so with a profound amount of caveats. However, we’ve recently stumbled upon something that is both entertaining, localish, and supports up and coming independent creative types. 

The Clapham Fringe has been running for eight years and, based on its success, earlier this year they made a decision to expand its borders and rebrand it as The Lambeth Fringe. The spiritual home of the Lambeth Fringe is the Bread and Roses Theatre pub in Clapham North. However, with the expansion to over 150 shows, the venues now include a church, a bookshop, and a film school, in addition to purpose built theatres in Waterloo, Clapham, Norwood, and other Lambeth areas. The one local venue is a series of shorts being shown at the best museum we bet you’ve never been to, the Cinema Museum.  

Some of the writing at the Fringe is new, some adapted from Edinburgh Fringe shows, and others making the tour of fringe festivals.   In the mix at Lambeth are traditional plays, standup, drag, storytelling and music. We challenge you to take a punt on a show or two and you might be pleasantly surprised. Of course you might walk out thinking ‘what the hell was THAT’, but that’s half the fun. Anyone care joining us for Guru Dave’s Cosmic Shamanic Tantric Ego Trip?

The Lambeth Fringe is on now until 20 October. Explore the programme, including Guru Dave,  here. And you better act quick, as those Runoff wannabies Time Out are on to it! 

Free Culture Week 3 – Open House London 2024

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It’s that time of year again and one of our favourite activities here at the Runoff…..sticking our noses where they don’t belong! From this weekend (14-15 September) to next weekend (21 and 22 September) is the Open House London Festival, celebrating London’s housing, architecture and neighbourhoods by flinging open doors and streets not usually open to the public. We have a few suggestion for you and they are all FREE, and we love free. 

Most Open House venues have friendly staff on hand to tell you more about what you’re seeing and there are often things to read. If you look on the website you’ll see some local bookable things, but we’re afraid you’ve missed the boat on those babies. The localish venues listed below are open to the public on specific dates, so look at opening times. However, if you possess the audacious gaul to travel out of Greater Kennington you might find there are hundreds more free things to stick your head into around the capital. But we couldn’t possibly encourage that kind of behaviour.

London Fire Brigade Memorial Hall Vauxhall (we’ve been, recommended)

St. Paul’s, Walworth Walworth (we’ve been, recommended, pic above)

Florence Nightingale Museum – Waterloo (usually not free but it is for Open House)

Anderson WW2 Bomb Shelter – Oval

The Beaufoy (Diamond Way Buddhist Centre) – Vauxhall (we’ve been, recommended, pic below)

St. Giles Parish Church – Camberwell

Southwark Heritage Centre and Library – Walworth (we’ve been, recommended)

Beaufoy Institute

Free Culture Week 1 – Covi-Mora and Greengrassi Galleries

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In the first instalment of our three part free culture crawl around Greater Kennington, we find ourselves in the highly acclaimed yet little known Covi-Mora and Greengrassi galleries,  located incongruously in a kind of alley behind the towers of the Hurley Estate. Commercial galleries can sometimes seems a daunting to normal folk such as us, but rest assured these galleries not only want you to visit but require it to stay afloat. And by looking at the many staff on hand scrolling through their DM’s, they welcome the diversion that your custom and mere presence offers. 

Covi-Mora is located on the second floor are currently showing work by American artist Myra Green.  The show is called A New Pattern, and she explores the way we perceive colour by the use of the ombre dye found in fabric. The results in these round works are captivating and create figures out of what look like random splashes.

Downstairs in Greengrassi we come across the work Irish born and London based artist Anne Ryan. On the right are ceramics which look at first like random pieces of discarded and painted pottery but on closer inspection morph into mass heaps of humanity. On the left are small canvases which look as if they were ripped out of larger, French genre paintings. Everything from a carriage and horses to strolling soldiers are depicted in her miniatures. 

The galleries also operate a pop up gallery called ‘NEITHER’ at 2 Wincott Parade in Kennington Road. It is currently showing works by artist Anika Roach. Access to this site is by arrangement but as it’s in a shop front you can just see the paintings on your way home from the pub. 

Covi-Mora and Greengassi galleries are located at at 1A Kempsford Road SE11 4NU. The entrance looks not unlike the doors to a prison or a sex dungeon (not that we’d know), but once buzzed through the staff are very merry and helpful folk. The three gallery spaces are showing the current exhibits until the first week of October. 

Unseen Vauxhall

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Lets be honest, we’ve all probably walked through Vauxhall and seen things that we wish we’d never seen, but we’ve just unearthed two fun walking tours that explore hidden elements of history that transpired there which we wished we had seen, but missed by a hundred years or so. 

Unseen Vauxhall – the Vanished and the Unseen is a two part, stand alone set of talks around Vauxhall and the Thames foreshore. The press release is tantalizingly short of detail, but states it will not be centred on the fabled Spring Gardens, which has been celebrated in books, Bridgerton and, most importantly, by us. These walks usually cover areas such as local discoveries, scandals, famous residents, notable architecture and political protests. 

Unseen Vauxhall is taking place on Tuesday, 3 September from 15:30 to 17:15. It is such a large topic that there is also an Unseen Vauxhall part 2 on Friday, 13 September from 13:30 – 15:30, so you’ll need to bunk off early from work. Tickets are on sale now for £12 but won’t be for long as the sale ends on 1 September. 

These two events are part of the larger Lambeth Heritage Festival taking place throughout September, many of which are free. We would happily send you over to the Lambeth but the links on their website *coughs and stares out window* aren’t working. We did unearth this .pdf, as we love you almost as much as you love us.