It’s Halloween, and boy, is the capital gearing up for it this year!
There are boat trips, fancy-dress parties, dressed-up ice-skating, proper art shows, Mariachi bands for the Day Of The Dead and, erm, of course, Abba!
Time to dig out your spookiest and most outrageous glad rags and get partying!
Waterfront Weirdness
As if Halloween wasn’t scary enough without going out on a boat to investigate the most haunted parts of the UK’s waterways! But that’s what GoBoat are suggesting – and they’re throwing in a paranormal expert just to make a night of it.
Rope in seven or so friends and follow ghost hunter Dr Ciaran O’Keefe’s advice on where to float your way into some paranormal activity around Little Venice and London Zoo, Canary Wharf or Kingston.
And in case you’re a non-believer, you can take your own spirits (sensibly though – you are on the water!) except in Paddington, which is alcohol-free. So at least you’ll know that you saw what you think you saw.
Various locations
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Join the parade with PATRÓN this Día de Muertos
If we know one thing about Mexico, it’s that they sure know how to throw a great Día de Muertos celebration. Oh, and they definitely know how to make tequila, too! Which is why super-premium tequila PATRÓN – handcrafted by the PATRÓN familia in Jalisco – is the go-to for the ultimate full-scale, all-colours blazing Día de Muertos celebration in London.
On 1 and 2 November, PATRÓN is bringing Mexico’s beloved cultural heritage celebration to life with an immersive parade in the heart of the city – set to be a spectacle to behold and an exciting chance to discover more about the celebration and its origin.
Guests with tickets can hop on board a marigold-adorned bus and raise a glass with a signature PATRÓN Paloma Roja. Joining the parade will be an assembly of performers directed by Miguel Torres Umba of Secret Cinema fame – including Mexican dancers and skull puppeteers – which means the celebrations will be frankly off the scale.
If you can’t make the parade, don’t worry: there are plenty of bars offering special PATRÓN serves and cocktail menu, including Hacha, Satan’s, Whiskers, Raffles, Bulgari Hotel and Arcade – so you can continue the celebrations after the parade.
Join the parade for £10 each, with four time slots available for you to choose from. Tickets include Mexican snacks and two PATRÓN Paloma Roja cocktails per person on board.
Starts Tanner Street, Ludgate Hill, SE1, 6pm/7pm, tickets £10
Squad ghouls
Perhaps the coolest part of the whole London town is putting on a raft of Halloween events for you to dress up in sexy/scary-wear for. Yes, fans of Peckham Levels, there’s The Scissors of Oz, a HalloWellness Party on Saturday, with tarot readings, themed pamper sessions and performances (free to get in, by the way).
Then there’s Spooky Bob Printing by the Anti-Diet Riot Club, where you get to make prints of body parts, and not forgetting Rilla’s 8th birthday party, which will be a full fancy-dress extravaganza on Saturday.
Various times, Peckham Levels, 95a Rye Lane, SE15
Here, there, and every-scare
You don’t want to take this whole Halloween thing too seriously, now, do you? We don’t. And that’s why we’re working on costumes for Club de Fromage, the outfit that describe themselves as ‘the clown princes of pop’. But we don’t know which of this Saturday’s events to plump for.
First up is the regular Murder on the Dancefloor CdF in Islington, where it’ll be a mix of pop and Not Another Indie Disco’s respectable guitar music – and you can only imagine how the room’s going to be done out.
And then there’s the brand-new Fromage on Ice Spooky Skate up at Ally Pally with prizes for best dressed, sing-alongs and magic wand glo-sticks. Don’t make us choose!
Saturday, various locations
Dancing scream
Now there are some people – silly people, no one we know – who think that the idea of a whole evening of Abba at The Gantry is scary enough. But that’s them.
We personally love the idea of an Abba-themed Halloween party, complete with Abba tribute act, lashings of pumpkin-spiced daiquiris, a buffet dinner (what is this? A wedding reception?) and obviously as much Waterloo and Mamma Mia and Day Before You Came (our personal favourite) as you can cram into an all-in-one Lycra outfit with plentiful VPL – and there’s a prize for the best dressed so don’t skimp. Or DO skimp!
And if you just can’t get enough, they’re starting again on Sunday with a daytime party where kids are welcome.
Saturday (and Sunday), 40 Celebration Avenue, E20
Spice up your life
Do Día de Muertos the proper Mexican way at Los Mochis, the gorgeous Mexican/Japanese fusion place in Notting Hill.
They’ve rammed the place with installations and are laying on specials like the Count Taco-La, which is honey-glazed pumpkin with a pineapple jalapeño salsa, a coffin made out of chocolate brownies and the Los Muertos Margarita, which we can imagine will be deadly…
Oh and on November 2 there will be a live Mariachi band, just to up the Mexican vibe even higher.
Until November 3, 2-4 Farmer Street, W8
Monster Mash
No, not the state of British politics at the moment but a new show at one of our favourite London locations, Somerset House. The idea behind The Horror Show! A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain is an exploration of how ideas rooted in horror have fed into the last half a century of creativity in the UK.
We’re talking the freakish costumes of Leigh Bowery, Gareth Pugh and Pam Hogg, the art and film of Derek Jarman, the graphics of Jamie Reid – who came up with the Sex Pistols’ punk Queen thing – all broken up into three sections, namely Monster, Ghost and Witch.
It’s going to be cooler than that ice spray you put onto pulled muscles.
Until February 19, Somerset House, Embankment Galleries, Victoria Embankment, WC2
Have a real shocker
This is a series of New Orleans-themed Halloween happenings with lashings of Southern Comfort at one of our favourite venues, so you really do need to start planning that outfit like *checks watch* now! And it’s not just one event.
It takes over the whole weekend so you may only have time to reapply your lipstick/gash to your neck before you’re on your way back. DJs, a free Southern Comfort Sour Cherry Smash on arrival, a Halloween edition of the Famous First Words music quiz, a Bottomless Brunch of Horrors, pumpkin carving, the works…
14 Lillie Road, SW6
Artsy Party
Start your art collection this very weekend with one of Jemma Rowe’s deliciously colourful paintings, which go on display up West from tomorrow.
Basically, a burst of colour and sunshine right there on your wall, the paintings depict architectural spaces with plenty of platforms and ladders as if they’re getting built right in front of your very eyes.
We’re no art experts of course, but this doesn’t begin to describe their impact… Prices start at £400 – go on, brighten up your winter. You might even need to wear shades indoors!
Until November 11, TM Lighting Gallery, 7 Cubitt Street, WC1
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