Elefest

Elefest is the festival for North and East Kennington and runs from October 4th to 6th. In previous years we’ve enjoyed the The StockMKT, a night market on Friday and Saturday from 5pm-10pm with great food, craft beer, arts and crafts, live music and DJs.

This year you can also go on a tour of the subways under the north roundabout with David Bratby, the artist who painted the murals on their walls, and there’s an art exhibition in the old doctor’s surgery on the soon-to-be-demolished Heygate Estate which has got to be worth a visit for lovers of ruin porn. There’s a screening of The Harder They Come, which features one of the Kennington Runoff’s favourite records, Many Rivers To Cross by Jimmy Cliff, followed by a DJ set from Don Letts.

More Elefest events here.

The Elefest branding is really great this year, and will be even better when the festival is given its rightful name, North Kennifest:

Elefest banner

Always Be Comedy at the Tommyfield

One of London’s best small comedy nights takes place every second Thursday upstairs at Kennington gastropub The TommyfieldSign up to their email list to find out about occasional big name attendees like Russell Howard, Russell Kane and Jason Manford, but even when the big names are absent the line-up tends to be more hit than miss. Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Award Nominee Carl Donnelly headlines this Thursday. Don’t sit in the front row unless you want to participate – last time around the actor Marc Warren was there and was roped into more than one routine. Tickets are £6 online or £7 on the door – a bargain for five acts plus some energetic compering.

That Pair at Always Be Comedy at The Tommyfield

That Pair at Always Be Comedy at The Tommyfield

Open House Kennington

Open House London is this weekend and Kennington is well represented.

First up, places that are varying degrees of difficult to visit outside of Open House:

60 Ambergate Street, a “small but well-crafted flat renovation” near Kennington tube

The Mobile Gardeners Park, which we wrote about here

Morley College, the adult education centre in North West Kennington. While you’re there, why not visit London’s largest guerrilla gardening site, located directly in front of Morley College in the giant, lavender-filled flower beds in the middle of Westminster Bridge Road:

Guerrilla tulips in bloom at the Guerrilla Gardening on Westminster Bridge Road, London April 2011, by Richard Reynolds

Guerrilla tulips in bloom at the Guerrilla Gardening on Westminster Bridge Road, London April 2011, by Richard Reynolds

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain

The Cinema Museum, a true labour of love in the former Master’s House of the Lambeth Workhouse, a Victorian Gothic building where Charlie Chaplin once stayed with his destitute mother. It can be a little tricky to organise tours of the Cinema Museum normally, and there’s a charge, so going during Open House is recommended.

Perronet House, a concrete council block on the north roundabout in North Kennington. If this looks or sounds unpromising then wait till you see the inside – fantastic views across London from two sides, outstanding use of period features, and a sun-drenched terrace full of plants. The photo of Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre below was taken from Perronet House.


Then there are these places which can be visited easily enough outside of Open House:

Beaconsfield, which we wrote about here

Siobhan Davies Studios, which we wrote about here

Lambeth Palace, the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury in England which dates back to the 13th century, is fully booked during Open House, but you can buy tickets for future tours here.

Inside City & Guilds of London Art School

Kennington Runoff presented itself at the Private View of the MA Fine Art Show tonight, a giddy high point in the Kennington art world calendar. If you’ve never been inside City and Guilds Art School, housed in a row of Georgian buildings along Kennington Park Road, the final shows are an excellent opportunity to poke around this labyrinthine space.

The show, titled Red Thread, runs from 12th-15th September, and is so-called because ‘in East Asian mythology the gods tie a red cord around the ankles of those that are destined to share the same fate – be it death, love or working on the 2103 MA Show at London’s City&Guilds Art School.’

The Kennington Runoff Prize goes to Mark Morgan, for tricking us more than once with his clever excavations. Special mention also goes to Jelena Bulajic and her mammoth-scale portraits. Go and see the show in person, because these photos don’t really do it justice.

Tarek Tuma:

by Tarek Tuma at City & Guilds MA show - kennigtonrunoff.com

Anja von Kalinowski:

by Anja von Kalinowski at City & Guilds MA show - kennigtonrunoff.com

Jelena Bulajic (this is impressively huge in real life):

by Jelena Bulajic at City & Guilds MA show - kennigtonrunoff.com

Mark Morgan:

by Mark Morgan at City & Guilds MA show - kennigtonrunoff.com

Kennington: celebrity party zone with Cara Delevingne and Rita Ora

We may be a little late in covering the #DKNYArtworks party that took place at the old Lambeth Fire Station on Whitgift Street earlier this summer, but we have good reason: we pride ourselves on lack of hype here, and we wanted to make sure that when we said that Kennington hosted this summer’s hottest party, nothing was going to trump that. Now in mid-August, it’s safe to say that SE11 can take the crown, after a night that featured Cara Delevingne stagebombing Rita Ora’s set (attempting a duet and showing off her very own take on the twerk), and appearances from an array of London’s bright youngish things including Eliza Doolittle, Henry Holland, Nick Grimshaw, Professor Green, Millie Mackintosh, and Bella Freud.

DKNY Artworks Launch, London, Britain - 12 Jun 2013

The old Lambeth Fire Station is part of an historically important fire brigade complex, sitting just behind a fire practice tower, and the more architecturally remarkable art deco moderne London Fire Brigade Headquarters on the Albert Embankment.

The Old Fire Station - kenningtonrunoff.com

The eighth annual Kennington Village Fete is this Saturday in Cleaver Square

As you can see from all the elements on the flier below, it’s really more than a fete – it’s a hyper-fete.

Although the alarmingly popular Bat the Rat stall has sadly departed for pastures new, the Amazing Human Fruit Machine still remains – and it really is amazing, or at least highly amusing the first time you see it.

Several Kennington restaurants will be serving food including The Lobster Pot which is one of London’s finest seafood restaurants, and definitely the most fun.

There will be live music, and who will the surprise special guests be? Morrissey? Florence? The Machine? Dot Allison? Giles Fraser performing A Change Is Gonna Come?

Finally, be sure to buy some Walworth Honey as harvested in East Kennington – previous years’ batches have been deliciously lemon-y like nothing you can buy in the shops, and eating local honey is supposed to be good for hay fever.

See you there.

Kennington Village Fete - kenningtonrunoff.com

food festival on a boat in West Kennington

Tamesis Dock, formerly known as The English Maid, is one of the best bars on the Thames. It’s a converted 1930s Dutch barge permanently docked off Albert Embankment in West Kennington. They sometimes play host to cool gigs, sometimes private parties, and the atmosphere is always good. This Thursday, Friday and Saturday night it hosts a dinner where fifteen different street food vendors all prepare a course (five each night). We recommend going along on Friday when London’s premier waffle makers Waffle On will be preparing one of the courses. Time Out has more info.