🧘 8 things to do in London this weekend with the kids (6–7 September)

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Hey DILFs!

Ever wanted to fling your child down a Rembrandt? Dulwich Picture Gallery has just opened the ArtPlay Pavilion, a new play area inside its gorgeous Sculpture Garden, that turns its paintings into soft play. Van Ruisdael’s Waterfall shows up as wavy surfaces and flowing layouts, Dughet’s stormy trees and Van de Velde’s sails show up as swings and windmills; and the use of sunlight in De Gelder’s Jacob’s Dream and Rembrandt Girl at a Window turn into shiny textures, copper pots and even sun capes. There are also some root-like lumps to clamber over, inspired by Jan van Kessel’s woodland scenes, as well as a central “calm” pit – which frankly sounds more useful for parents than kids.

The pavilion officially launches this weekend, with a family festival in the Sculpture Garden – face-painting, live music, art-making and more – and a quiet admission that sometimes the best way to appreciate a painting is to climb all over it.

And now, for what else you can do this weekend…

Enjoy!

Jeff xx

PS Last week, it seems a few of my links were broken. at Sorry about that! Let me know if you want me to send you any of the correct links.

1: Meet cult kids’ comedians with jokes for parents too

The Listies: Make Some Noise
Sunday 7 September, 11:00 and 14:00
artsdepot, 5 Nether Street, Tally Ho Corner, N12 0GA
£13.75 per person
Age guidance: 4+

I bloody love it when children’s TV shows, films and performances shoehorn in a bunch of innuendo, satire or social commentary that go right over kids’ heads. Like when Shrek and Donkey first see Farquaad’s huge castle, and Donkey stares up and says, “Do you think maybe he’s compensating for something?” (Also: “Farquaad” is a gift of a name.) Or when Buzz Lightyear sees Jessie do a stunt and his wings pop out instantly.

So I’m convinced I’ll love Make Some Noise – which features fart jokes, bums and burping aplenty, but also lots of clever puns that only adults will get. The show is by Rich and Matt – collectively known as The Listies – who are essentially cult figures in the children’s entertainment world. The premise is that they’re trying to teach the audience about music, but Matt keeps derailing everything with puerile humour, a ridiculous PowerPoint presentation, air guitars and his bum.

There’s no shortage of audience involvement too: kids get to bash a triangle, squish a crab or burp a melody in the name of music-making. And apparently there’s a scene where Matt pretends to be a baby in a cot, crying for his iPad – and it’s so well-observed that parents are in tears of laughter. The kids, meanwhile, are just busy chuckling at all the chaos.

Make Some Noise has been causing a racket for a while now, touring various countries since 2022 and scooping up rave reviews everywhere. Frank Skinner said, “Without a doubt the funniest kids show I’ve ever seen… I really really laughed. I’d have been happy to go on my own and still would’ve laughed.” And The Scotsman said, “If your kids have never been to the theatre before, do them a favour and make this their first experience. It’s something they will never forget.”

And you know what’s so annoying? I can’t effing go! If you make it, please let me know what it’s like – I’ll be over here sulking like the iPad baby.

Find out more: https://www.artsdepot.co.uk/event/the-listies-make-some-noise

While you’re there…

👍️ N20 Kids Club is a soft-play space less than a mile away. I’ve never been, but the reviews suggest you take the “3 months to 11 years” suggested age range and smash it to smithereens. Six years old seems like the upper limit.

👍️ Little Tea House is a gem of a place, with spectacular teas and beautiful cakes and pastries (which are all made in-house by the owner). Board games are apparently available; I didn’t see them when I visited, but that might be because my own kids looked too feral to be trusted with a load of Jenga blocks.

2: Bring the kids to a clean-living day rave

ALIVE : LDN
Sunday 7 September, 10:00–20:00
Hackney Bridge, Units 1-28, Echo Building, E Bay Lane, E15 2SJ (located inside Queen Elizabeth Park)
£29 per person if you arrive before 12:00 (£49 per person if you arrive after), under-7s free
Age guidance: suitable for all

One of my worst London experiences of all time was at the ironically named The Church in Kentish Town (thankfully now defunct). It was “daytime clubbing” on a Sunday, but not the wholesome kind where people sip green juice and go home for a nap. This was daytime clubbing for people who hadn’t yet admitted Saturday night was over. There was fancy dress, strippers on stage and drinking games – and the congregation of sweaty revellers was so rowdy that bouncers had to be stationed on the Kentish Town tube platforms.

As someone who’d had a full night’s sleep and really just wanted a smoothie and some pop music, I hated every second. I went in 2008 and still hold a grudge against the “friends” who took me there.

ALIVE: LDN sounds like more my cup of tea. (Ooh: do they serve tea? Must investigate.) The name suggests another messy free-for-all, but in fact it’s the total opposite. This is billed as a “social wellness festival” – a “reconnection to the pulse of joy through our most potent longevity technologies: dance, music, movement, and social connection”. A bit pukey, but at least only metaphorically – rather than the kebab-and-Jägers being redeployed onto pavements outside The Church. (Although by the time I got to the part of the website that mentioned “aliveness over algorithms” via “sweat, breath, and eye contact”, I did start to feel like I might need a bucket after all.)

Woo-woo aside, the line-up looks solid. The day kicks off at 10am with a yoga/run/dance triathlon, then you’ve got street food, DJ sets (Groove Armada, Sam Divine and more), live performances, saunas and cold plunges for the grown-ups, and – crucially – it’s all outdoors in the sunshine. It’s even sponsored by BRITA, which tells you everything: this is not a party, it’s a hydration workshop with music.

Tickets are cheaper if you arrive before midday, so set the alarm. And kids under 7 go free – exactly the kind of clean-living daytime clubbing I can get behind.

Find out more: https://www.daybreaker.com/alive/

While you’re there…

👍️ Hungry after all that wellness? Head to Day 2 of the World Halal Food Festival, a short walk away. (See below for more info.)

3: Fill up at the UK’s biggest halal food festival

World Halal Food Festival
Saturday 11:00–20:00 and Sunday 11:00–19:00
London Stadium, Queen Elizabeth Park, E20 2ST
From £8.99 per person, under-11s free
Age guidance: suitable for all

Forget inflation, stagflation and shrinkflation. The scourge of our age, at least according to New York politician Zorhan Mamdami, is “halalflation” – the fact that even a humble meat on rice from an NYC street vendor now costs $10. If that’s what keeps him up at night, he’d better never come to London: the World Halal Food Festival would finish him off. Tickets are £8.99 for a four-hour slot, plus a £1.45 booking fee. So: £8.99 if you squint, £10.44 if you can count. And you haven’t even eaten anything yet. Thankfully, children aged 10 and under go free.

I’m being a bit unfair on the WHFF. It’s not just a meal; it’s (half) a day out. In addition to the 150+ vendors, there are live cooking demos by celebrity chefs, a “diverse array of performances from international artists” (no clue who), “halal eat-offs”, and a kids’ zone with rides and games.

As for the food…. there’s a lot of it, from every corner of the world, including a dedicated “Desserts” area – which is where my eldest has decided to plonk himself for however long we’re there. I did some digging, and it looks like each dish will cost about £8–£10. Mamdami would be furious.

Find out more: https://www.queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk/whats-on/world-halal-food-festival

While you’re there…

👍️ Bit of a different vibe, but ALIVE: LDN is a short walk away (see info above). Possibly not the best idea to dance and do yoga if you’ve just gorged yourself silly on street food, though.

4: Discover lost coins, tools and treasures of Londinium

Mudlarking Exhibition in Roman Amphitheatre
Saturday and Sunday, 10:00–17:00
Guildhall Art Gallery, Guildhall Yard, EC2V 5AE
FREE
Age guidance: suitable for all

Things people once did out of poverty now get marketed as hobbies for the over-moneyed and under-occupied. Lobster was prison food; now it’s the price of a Eurostar to Paris and back. Knitting and sewing were just “patch the knees or freeze”; now it’s £20-a-ball artisanal wool. Bathing in icy water was once unavoidable misery; now it’s “wild swimming” and comes with a hashtag.

And then there’s mudlarking.

Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, mudlarks weren’t quirky hobbyists in waders – they were some of the poorest people in London, scraping the Thames for anything they could sell. Their shopping list was whatever washed up: rope, coal, nails, the odd coin if you were lucky, or nicked cargo if you were braver. The job description also included slogging through raw sewage, dodging broken glass and occasionally sharing the shoreline with a floating corpse. These days you need a permit, a metal detector and enough spare time to waste an afternoon in the mud.

To be fair, the modern mudlarks do a huge service. The artefacts they recover continue to tell us new things about London, from Roman Londinium right up to the 20th century. And if the “Roman Empire meme” is to be believed, half the dads reading this already think about Rome several times a week – so really, this is just giving you new material for your next internal lecture.

Which brings us to this mudlarking exhibition, taking place inside the remains of London’s only Roman amphitheatre – a space carefully excavated and now accessible beneath the Guildhall. Once the site of gladiator fights, wild animals and public executions, it’s now the setting for an exhibition of Roman artefacts pulled from the Thames by modern mudlarks. It’s a rare chance to get close to the everyday bits and bobs that make Romans feel less like marble statues and more like people who also lost things down the back of the sofa.

Find out more: https://thamesfestivaltrust.org/whats-on/mudlarking-exhibition-in-roman-amphitheatre-23902/

While you’re there…

👍️ Postman’s Park is a beautiful little pocket park nearby, which opened in 1880 and was a popular lunchtime garden with workers from the nearby Old General Post Office. It’s also home to the Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, which commemorates “ordinary people who died saving the lives of others and who might otherwise have been forgotten”. The history of the memorial is super interesting, if you’re up for a quick read.

5: Step aboard historic tugs, cruisers and patrol vessels

St Katharine Docks Classic Boat Festival
Saturday and Sunday, 11:00–17:00
St Katharine Docks, Marina 50, St Katharine's Way, E1W 1LA
FREE
Age guidance: suitable for all

Call me irrational, but I can’t think of anything worse than being stuck on a boat in the middle of the sea. I understand why people might need to do it for wars and stuff, but for fun? With so many ways to end up lost, on fire, overboard or sunk, I’ll leave it to people who clearly have sturdier nerves than I do.

Boats are, however, beautiful objects that deserve to be ogled – and the Classic Boat Festival is a great chance to ogle them. I’ve been plenty of times in the past, and I’ll be there again to see the 50+ vintage and preserved vessels bobbing gently (and, importantly for me, firmly anchored) in the lovely St Katharine Docks. Many of them will be Little Ships of Dunkirk – the private boats that sailed to Dunkirk in 1940 as part of Operation Dynamo, rescuing around 336,000 British, French and other Allied soldiers trapped on the beaches.

There’ll also be motorboats from the Bates Star Craft range, which, according to ChatGPT, were “iconic wooden motor-cruisers built in Chertsey, England, by W Bates & Son between 1946 and 1975”. They’re gasp-worthy to look at – although can someone explain why the same people who’d never tolerate a basic bathroom or shoebox of a bedroom in their house will happily put up with such modest conditions in a floating shed that cost tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds?

A range of other working vessels will be on show too, including historic tugs and a Navy P2000 – one of just 16 patrol boats built in the 1980s to train students for real-life military missions. Crews of five have to live on board for weeks at a time, crammed into a space smaller than your living room; it’s basically a crash course in how to live inside someone else’s armpit.

The Classic Boat Festival website doesn’t give you any of this context, FYI – as though the average punter rocks up having memorised the Dunkirk flotilla roster. But I think it makes all the difference: suddenly you’re not just looking at wood and brass, but noseying around floating bits of history.

And you really can nosey around: many owners will let you hop on board and take a look if you ask nicely. There’ll also be live music, talks, food, and nautical antiques on Marble Quay. Last time, there was a brilliant gift bag for kids, so fingers crossed they have that again. The best bit? All of this happens while the boats stay firmly tied up. Which, for landlubbers like me, is the real festival highlight.

While you’re there…

👍️ Tower Bridge is just around the corner, as is the Tower of London.

👍️ There’s a hotel nearby called CitizenM, which has a huge, fantastic lobby that children seem to love. There are comfy seats everywhere, fun-looking books and magazines, and it’s generally just a great place to hang out. The lobby serves coffees and various snacks.

👍️ Over the river, across Tower Bridge, is Shad Thames – one of the most beautiful streets in London (check out some photos here). There are plenty of places to eat and get a drink here, and there’s also a Shad Thames Trail if you want to dig into the genuinely interesting history of the place.

6–8: More, more, more!

Circular Free-Play Workshop
Saturday 6 September, 10:00–11:30 or 12:00–13:30
London Museum Studios, Studio Smithfield, 1 East Poultry Avenue, EC1A 9PT
FREE
Age guidance: 1+

“In this workshop, you’ll work with Studio TIP to turn real-world surplus materials – the kind that normally gets overlooked after mass production – into playful objects and artworks. Offcuts, trims, odd shapes and leftovers. Stuff that didn’t make the cut. Until now.

Guided by a material library, we’ll teach the principles of reuse, remix and circular design through hands-on play. Think less classroom, more scrapyard meets sketchbook. You’ll test, build, mess up and make something weird and brilliant.

This is not a structured class – it's a space for children to lead their own play, build, stack, sort and invent. Mess is welcome and no rules apply!

No experience needed, just curiosity.”

Baby Gospel
Sunday 7 September, 11:00–11:45
Big Penny Social, 1 Priestley Way, E17 6AL
One adult + up to 3 kids: £14.50
Age guidance: suitable for all

“Baby Gospel is an uplifting family concert of soul, Motown and gospel music, featuring the astonishing vocal talents of London’s CK Gospel Choir.

The whole family can enjoy singing and clapping along to hits by Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, Adele, Jackie Wilson, Pharrell and more - as well as some traditional Gospel songs, nursery rhymes and bubbles!

CK Gospel Choir are a versatile professional group from London who are united by their love of gospel music and have provided backing for artists such as Beverley Knight, Peter Andre and Alfie Boe.”

(FYI: I’ve been to a Baby Gospel event at a different location before, and it was FANTASTIC.)

Brassworks 2025
Saturday 6 September, 12:00–20:00
Woolwich Works, The Fireworks Factory, 11 No. 1 Street, SE18 6HD
FREE
Age guidance: suitable for all

“Our festival of horns returns on Saturday 6 September and will feature a parade through Woolwich, and a full day of free outdoor concerts in our courtyard.”

celebrASIA
Saturday 10:00–19:00 and Sunday 10:00–18:00 (ish)
In and around Battersea Power Station, Circus Road West, SW11 8DD
FREE
Age guidance: suitable for all

“...a three-day celebration of South East Asian food, culture and community.

… Tuck into delicious food and drink from some of London’s finest South East Asian street food pop-ups or book a spot at the riverside Feasting Table, which is new for this year’s festival. Browse 30+ independent makers at the indoor Artisan Market, enjoy live music and dance performances, plus arts and crafts sessions for all ages.

Families can follow the Grand Tour trail to learn about South East Asia, completing their own celebrASIA passport and claiming an explorer sticker and stamp at the end.”

(There’s a lot to see and do at celebrASIA! Check out the schedules here, and be sure to scroll down to the second schedule for family activities.)