Hey DILFs! I just spent an hour and a half researching and writing a part-recommendation, part-blistering attack on an annual event called Sculpture in the City. It was SO GOOD. You’ll never get to read it, because I’ve just discovered I was writing about last year’s exhibition. This year’s hasn’t even been announced yet. So while I go away and cry, please enjoy all the things you can actually do this weekend. Enjoy (and feel sorry for me), Jeff xx PS I suggested a few things to do last weekend at the Open House Festival, and there’s plenty more going on this weekend. Here are a few of my favourites:
1: Laugh at animals having spectacularly unphotogenic momentsNikon Comedy Wildlife Awards 📍 Where: Frameless, 6 Marble Arch, W1H 7AP  I’ve had a bit of a ticking-off from Frameless since I last wrote about it – when I complained that it was expensive for what you actually get. They had two points to make in their defence. First, they pointed out that its World Around Us gallery now contains 13 artworks, rather than the seven I’d mentioned. More importantly, they thought I was underestimating quite how much work goes into making the whole thing. They sent me this behind-the-scenes video, which shows the frankly ridiculous amount of work involved in turning a single painting into something that can move across the walls of an enormous gallery. I still think it’s bloomin' expensive. Sure it takes a crapton of work to produce, but effort and value aren't quite the same thing: you can spend six months making a sandwich and I’m still not paying £40 for it. On the other hand, given that Frameless has welcomed millions of visitors since it opened, plenty of people are clearly happy to pay what it charges. So basically: I’m just a tightwad. Or at least I used to be a tightwad, because Frameless has now added something to the ticket that I’d happily fork out a fortune for. It’s become the new home of the Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards, with 91 of the best photographs from the past decade on display. So perhaps Frameless was never too expensive for me: perhaps I was just waiting for the right giant seal. If you haven’t been to Frameless, the usual idea is to take famous artworks by famous artists – Van Gogh, Monet, Klimt and so on – and transform them into enormous projections across the walls and floors around you. This new exhibition is a brilliant extension of the same idea, but with photos of animals being accidentally absurd instead. The photographs are divided between seven habitats – forests, grasslands, oceans, rivers and so on – so you might have a grinning bear cub looming above you in a forest, then find yourself face-to-face with a dancing monkey. The awards were started in 2015 by wildlife photographers Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam, who realised that making people laugh at animals was a pretty good way of making them care about them too. There’s a conservation mission behind the whole thing, with the comedy intended to get more people interested in protecting wildlife. Find out more: https://frameless.com/artist-residencies/comedy-wildlife-awards/
2: Watch thousands of lanterns light up a pond after darkWater Lantern Festival 📍 Where: Clapham Common, Long Pond, SW4 9DE  I was once told that I’m far better looking in low light, which I believe is one of the best examples of a backhanded compliment I’ve ever heard – let alone received. And while I’m still reeling because it was (surely?) intended as an insult, the joke’s kind of on them because almost EVERYTHING looks better in low light. Fireworks. Christmas lights. City skylines. Service station toilets. The contents of a kebab. And, of course, lanterns. The travel bloggers of the early 2010s made VERY sure we knew about those. Lanterns in Thailand. Lanterns in Vietnam. Lanterns in Taiwan. Lanterns everywhere, it seemed, as long as they were at least ten hours and several days of annual leave away. But now, having seen a nice thing and decided we wanted one too, we have our very own lantern festival in London. (New York, LA and Toronto got a festival too, of course.) Inspired by the lantern traditions of Chiang Mai, the London version takes place around the Long Pond on Clapham Common, and there’s a whole evening built around the actual lantern bit. It starts at 18:00 – or possibly 17:30, depending on which page of the website you’re on – with live music, food, games and an open mic. Everyone with a ticket gets a lantern kit to put together and decorate with whatever message, drawing or wish they fancy. Then, as it gets dark, everyone heads to the water and releases their lanterns together. They’re expecting thousands of them to be floating on the pond at once. And unless the promotional photographs are committing some fairly serious fraud, it should look gorgeous. No need to worry about lantern detritus, by the way: the organisers follow a “leave no trace” philosophy and will collect every single one from the water afterwards, as well as any pre-existing waste. The lanterns are made from biodegradable rice paper, wooden bases and LED candles that are reused and recycled – so if you think about it, you’re basically doing Clapham Common a favour. The thing you SHOULD worry about and DEFINITELY consider deeply before you book? Children aged eight and under don’t get a lantern. They get into the festival for free, but their free admission doesn’t include a lantern kit. If you have anyone younger than nine and you value your sanity, I'd strongly recommend preparing them for this fact before they spend an hour watching everyone else decorate theirs. (Or you can buy them a full-price ticket if you want them to have a lantern of their own. I’ve checked with the organisers and of course they’re happy for you to do that too.) Find out more: https://fever.pxf.io/0G5ANM 3: Give the under-10s a theatre festival of their ownBig Dreams Festival at Polka Theatre 📍 Where: Polka Theatre, 240 The Broadway, SW19 1SB  “Festival” does an awful lot of work these days. It can mean three days in a field watching bands; a weekend listening to authors talk about their books; a month of orchestras at the Albert Hall; or six trestle tables, some face paint and a man with a guitar. I think we need more words for festivals. Still, I’m very much in favour of the fact that even the under-10s now get their own one. Big Dreams is Polka Theatre’s festival of theatre and creativity for younger children, with shows from the UK and abroad, interactive events and free activities. There are several performances each day, with the Age varying from show to show – so you can put together your own mini-festival programme. There’s free stuff happening around the theatre too – and, in true festival fashion, you’re actively encouraged to see more than one show. If you book two or more events, you’ll get up to 15% off. Saturday MC Grammar The Tale of the Loneliest Whale Multicolore Sunday Family Rave Nick Sharratt’s Once Upon a Drawalong After Party Dancing with Colours As you may have noticed, quite a lot of this has already sold out – so if there’s something you fancy, I’d get booking. Golden Ticket members**, incidentally, heard about Big Dreams weeks ago. If you’re feeling slightly aggrieved that other people keep getting to the good stuff before you do, you could always join them for £36 a year.** Find out more: https://polkatheatre.com/big-dreams-festival-2026/
4: Give your kids control of London’s planning decisionsFamily Activity: Marvellous Maps, The Past, Present and Future of St Martin’s 📍 Where: St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, WC2N 4JJ  St Martin-in-the-Fields doesn’t do many family events, but I’m delighted they’ve identified the primary-school demographic as a growth opportunity. It’s a beautiful church with a gorgeous crypt, and until now my main reason for taking children there has been the Christmas carol services (which are, incidentally, GREAT). For this, kids aged 5–13 get to become city planners for the day. They’ll start by looking through old maps of London from the church archives, then use toy blocks to build their own 3D version of the St Martin-in-the-Fields parish. And there are actual decisions to make: where do you put the schools and police stations? How will you look after poorer residents? Does your city need a bath house? Where will you put the Gail’s? Where will everyone sit the second the sun comes out? Will there be a Pret opposite another Pret, for symmetry? After all, this may just be a fun exercise, but realism is important in these things. Find out more: https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/whats-on/marvellous-maps-2/
5: See what happens when a soldier puts Death in a sackThe Devil, The Tsar & Three Dry Biscuits 📍 Where: Jacksons Lane Arts Centre, 269a Archway Road, N6 5AA  Traditional fairy stories – the ones we’ve loved and passed on to our children – contain some useful lessons. Don’t lie about wolves. Don’t steal porridge. Don’t build houses out of straw. And the consequences for doing these things can be pretty brutal. But our fairy tales have NOTHING on the Russian ones. The Devil, the Tsar & Three Dry Biscuits is based on a traditional Russian folk tale about a soldier who, after 25 years in the army, is sent home with three dry biscuits for his trouble. He gives them to three hungry beggars and is rewarded with a magic sack that can trap anything, plus a pack of cards that always wins. He goes on to gamble with demons, trap them in his sack and rid the Tsar’s palace of them. Then, when Death eventually comes for him, he puts Death in the sack too – leaving a world in which nobody can die. I won’t tell you how it ends, but suffice to say it gets considerably darker and more existential than a tortoise winning a race against a hare. There’s a large character list here: the soldier, the Tsar, three beggars and Death personified, plus assorted other villains I haven’t even mentioned yet. And you’re getting just ONE actor to play them all. Fortunately, that actor is Ben Haggarty. He’s been performing stories professionally for more than 40 years, directed Britain’s first storytelling festival in 1985, spent a decade as the official storyteller for Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, and has performed everywhere from caves to Carnegie Hall. His background is in mime and physical theatre, so Haggarty uses his voice and body to become the different characters, talks directly to the audience and creates everything else – the palace, the demons, the forest, Death – in your imagination. Jackanory this is not. It’s recommended for ages 8+, and is meant to be thrilling and occasionally pretty dark – although there are no jump scares or sudden shocks. Whether your eight-year-old considers Death himself less scary than a jump scare is another matter. Find out more: https://www.jacksonslane.org.uk/events/the-devil-the-tsar-three-dry-biscuits-with-ben-haggarty/ Other listingsThis section brings together both new events I don’t have room to expand on and selected older ones from past newsletters that are still running. If you see a “(see my write-up here)”, that’s your cue to click through and rediscover whatever Past Me felt strongly enough to write about. Hay!📍 Where: Jacksons Lane Arts Centre, 269a Archway Road, N6 5AA Rabbit & Rey and The Lost Things📍 Where: artsdepot, 5 Nether Street, Tally Ho Corner, N12 0GA Trading Stories at Leadenhall Market (free immersive marketplace)📍 Where: Leadenhall Market, Gracechurch Street, London, EC3V 1LT Family Workshop: Adventure Board Games Pip and Posy Live on Stage📍 Where: Little Angel Theatre, 14 Dagmar Passage, N1 2DN Blood, Guts and Nasty Cuts (fun family talk)📍 Where: The Royal Institution of Great Britain, 21 Albemarle Street, W1S 4BS London Oratorio Hola Frida \+ Pre-film Drawing Demo with Erika Meza The Pied Piper: A Rat's Tale📍 Where: Little Angel Studios, Sebbon Street, N1 2EH As You Like It (see my write-up here)📍 Where: Shakespeare’s Globe, 21 New Globe Walk, SE1 9DT The Three Little Wolves📍 Where: Puppet Theatre Barge, Richmond, TW10 6UT Childhood in War (see my write-up here)📍 Where: Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, SE1 6HZ The Comedy About Spies📍 Where: Adelphi Theatre, Strand, WC2R 0NS Cats (see my write-up here)📍 Where: Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, The Regent's Park, Inner Circle, NW1 4NU The Timewalk Exhibition – An Immersive Journey Through Civilisations (see my write-up here)📍 Where: Immerse LDN, Excel Waterfront, ExCel, E16 1XL Frida: The Making of an Icon (see my write-up here)📍 Where: Tate Modern, Bankside, SE1 9TG House of Dreamers (see my write-up here)📍 Where: Immerse LDN, Excel Waterfront, ExCel, E16 1XL King’s Cross Pétanque (see my write-up here)📍 Where: Pancras Square, King's Cross, N1C 4AG 1996: 30 years on (see my write-up here)📍 Where: Barbican Music Library, Barbican Library, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS |
🐮 42 things to do in London this weekend with the kids (19–20 September)
Sep 16, 2026
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12 min read
