From the Editor
* The Gate Theatre is closing after nearly 50 years of “transformative international theatre” and “several years of survival in a precarious funding climate”. The news follows on the heels of an announcement that The Africa Centre is broke and has been forced to close. The Centre’s CEO said it must raise £100,000 to reopen the building.
Daniel Nelson london.globalevents@gmail.com
TALKS AND DISCUSSIONS
Sunday 4 October
* The Strength Between Us: Resistance, free family-friendly weekend in which “artists, writers, filmmakers, musicians, activists and campaigners explore some of the most urgent issues facing contemporary Britain while celebrating the richness and diversity of its many communities”, curated by Whitechapel Gallery and the Runnymede Trust, 12 - 6pm, Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, E1 7QX. Info: Gallery
* Black British Book Festival, Europe’s largest celebration of Black literature with Candice Carty-Williams, Corinne Bailey Rae, Wretch 32, The Black Poetry Shutdown, Malika Booker, Lady Sanity, Jah Digga, festival pass £24, 1 - 8pm, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS. Info: Festival
Monday 5 October
* Palestine: A British Question?, Humza Yousaf and Husam Zomlot discuss why Palestine resonates so powerfully in British politics, Britain’s responsibility today, and whether Britain’s relationship with Palestine is changing, 6.15-7.30pm, £16.80, livestream £6.50, The Conduit, 6 Langley Street WC2H 9JA. Info: The Conduit
* Malaria across scales: From global burden to cases on our doorstep, Jackie Cook, Fitsum Tadesse, Claire Rogers, 5.30 - 6.30pm, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, WC1E 7HT. Info: LSHTM
Tuesday 6 October
* Reporting the Syrian Refugee Crisis, Iona Craig, Jeanne Carstensen, Itab Azzam, Jack MacInnes on reporting beyond the news cycle, the ethics and intimacy of telling other people’s stories, 7pm, from £5.94, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place, W2. Info: Frontline
* Every last girl: a journey to educate India’s forgotten daughters, Safeena Husain, 6,30 - 8pm, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, WC2
* Economies, institutions and gender: two talks on Taiwan’s development, Tsong-Min Wu and Elliott Fan, 7-9pm, SOAS,Thornhaugh Street, WC1
* Unlocking the impossible: The reality of quantum power on society, Hafiz Md. Hasan Babu, 11am–12:30pm, online. Info: Institute of Development Studies
EXHIBITIONS
* Frida: The Making of an Icon, how Frida Kahlo became one of the most influential artists of all time, from her political activism to global Fridamania, £25, Tate Modern, Bankside SE1 9TC, until 3 January. Info: Tate
+ How the zeitgeist helped create Fridamania
* Rising Voices, Contemporary Arts From Asia, Australia and the Pacific, work by more than 40 artists from 25 countries, £17, V&A Museum, Cromwell Road SW7 until 10 January. Info: V&A
+ Arresting voices of the Asia-Pacific
* Moved to Care: Stories of Health and Migration, explores the contributions of migrants from across the globe to healthcare over the last 150 years, from the 19th century colonial legacy of missionary nurses to the Windrush Generation, free, 20 Cavendish Square, W1G OR until 2 November. Info: Royal College of Nursing
+ Migrant nurses: Looking after Britain’s health
* The Arab Hall: Past and Present, the Hall in the 100-year-old Leighton House is a blend of 13th-century Damascus tiles and Victorian architecture. A new exhibition features contemporary art and a dedicated film, offering a deeper look at how Islamic art has influenced British spaces, £14, Leighton House, 12 Holland Park Road, W14 8LZ until 4 October. Info: Leighton House
* The Music is Black: A British Story, how Black British music has shaped British culture from 1900 to today through objects like Joan Armatrading’s childhood guitar, Littler Simz fashion and photographs, £22.50 weekdays, £24.40, V&A East, Queen Elizabeth Park, Olympic Park. Info: V&A East Museu
* When words fall silent, cinema speaks: Zineb Sedira’s installation on Algeria’s key role in African cinema in the 1960s and ‘70s, Tate Britain, Millbank, SW1P 4RG until 17 January. Info: Tate
* When Third Cinema was a power in the land
* Anish Kapoor, sculptures and paintings by the Mumbai-born Indian-British artist, £22, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX until 18 October. Info: Hayward.
* Hybrid forms and live realities: the sculpture of Bharti Kher, the British Indian artist explores the body, womanhood, mythology and cultural identity, V&A Museum, Cromwell Road, until 24 January. Info: Exhibition
* Target Queen, large-scale commission by British-Indian artist Bharti Kher, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre
* Collecting and Empire, trail making connections between archaeology, anthropology and the British Empire, British Museum, Great Russell Street, WC1. Info: British Museum
* British Library, installation of 6,328 books marks the contributions of migrants to UK,Tate Modern, Bankside SE1. Info: Installation
* Childhood in War, the UK’s first dedicated exhibition exploring how war affects and shapes young lives, UK-oriented but including contemporary stories and quotes from Afghanistan, Sudan and Ukraine, Imperial War Museums, Lambeth Road, SE1 6HZ. until 28 February. Info: War Museum
* Rudy Loewe: Intimacies of Care – Spaces of Grief and Possibility, the lived experience of Black people whose mental healthcare in the UK is shaped by racist discrimination, free, Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, NW1 2BE until 7 February. Info: Wellcome
* A Life of Navigation, Taiwanese artist Musquiqui Chihying explores our ambiguous relationship with analogue and digital technologies through installation, video, photography, and sculpture, free, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX, until 18 October. Info: Hayward
* Zifzafa, video works by Lawrence Abu Hamdan that address how sound can both sustain and disrupt the richness of community life, free, Barbican Centre, Silk Street EC2Y 8DS. Info: Barbican
* Amar Kanwar, the India-based artist’s film trilogy investigates legacies of decolonisation and the 1947 Partition, free, Serpentine North Gallery, West Carriage Drive W2 2AR until 31 January. Info: Serpentine
* The Unclassified, group exhibition of four leading contemporary Korean and Korean-heritage artists: Meekyoung Shin, Ayoung Kim, siren eun young jung, and Gala Porras-Kim, Korean Cultural Centre, Grand Buildings, 1-4 Strand WC2N 5BW until 31 December. Info: KCX
* Korea, exploring over two millennia of Korean art and culture, £18, British Museum, Great Russell Street WC1B 3DG until 31 January. Info: Korea
+ Two millennia of K-history: hard to remember, hard to forget
* Salman Toor: Someone Like You, born in Lahore and currently living in the US, his work “depicts queer and immigrant lives that straddle different cultures and inhabit the tension between intimacy and exposure, belonging and estrangement. What it means to find a community, but also the daily costs associated with visibility”, £10 - £16, Courtold Institute, Somerset House, Strand, WC2R 0RN until 10 January. Info; Courtold
ARTS OPPORTUNITIES
* An experienced curator is needed by the Migration Museum to help shape its inaugural temporary exhibitions programme.
* Applications are open for a four-month mentorship and pitch development programme supporting displaced and migrant women filmmakers working on short fiction or documentary projects. It is designed for UK-based women with prior experience in film or media who want to reconnect with the industry after relocating from their home countries. More information here
* Freedom from Torture invites entries for its poetry competition, Worlds into Words, inspired by the journeys people carry within them - across countries, cultures, and the landscapes of memory and identity. Entry is free for refugees, £5 for others and £1 for under-18s. Competition closes 9 October at 5pm.
* The Markaz Review Literary Prizes are open to short stories and literary essay/creative nonfiction by writers from the SWANA region. Submissions deadline: 30 October.
* Entries for Open City Documentary Festival 2027 are now open.
* LegalAliens Theatre’s is designed for migrants, refugees, people seeking asylum and anyone with English as a second language. All sessions are led by migrant artists from the theatre’s professional team: “an incredible opportunity to learn new skills, express creatively, practice English and build friendships.” Email Nada to register at legalalienstheatre@legalaliens.org.
* The Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series is inviting poems (40 lines or less) and short prose (100 words or less) exploring: African and African diasporic migration and (im)mobility; how African and Asian refugees are being left to drown in the English Channel; and Edward Nkoloso, Afronauts and the 1960s Zambian Space Programme..
* Applications for Projekt Empower’s Practice Lab workshops for international theatre makers are invited, and a new Immersion Lab aimed at translating documentary material into performance is underway.
* Wanted: poems and short prose on the tragedy of refugee deaths in the Channel.
* The Royal Court Theatre’s Writers’ Card aims to help playwrights through mentoring, networking, funding opportunities, events, subsidised meals and free script printing.
* The Climate Migration Collaborative seeks contributors to its Climate Migration Storytelling initiative.
* Comedian Munya Chawawa has launched Black Boys Theatre Club “to give young men access to a world of theatre”.
* The BFI is to invest £150m over the next three years under six headings: audiences, education & heritage, filmmaking & talent development, skills & workforce development, international, and insight & industry.
* Good Chance, formed in the Calais Jungle refugee camp, is launching Stage Door 10 - a national programme placing 10 creatives from refugee backgrounds in paid roles across 10 UK theatres and arts organisations.
* As Yet Unscene, year-round initiative to find and develop scripts in early stages of development. it includes workshops, rehearsed readings and fully-rehearsed performances of longer extracts. Details here
* The Cockpit Theatre offers classes, workshops, readings, advice sessions, support & performance opportunities.
* Papatango hopes its new Playwrights’ Studio will be a home for playwrights of all levels of experience. Its advantages include digital workshops, lone-to-one, and thousands of pounds in open-access funding.
* If you are a refugee, immigrant or asylum-seeking writer interested in exploring your own poetry and prose, Exiled Writers Ink offers classes.
FILM
* The Cycle of Love, reconstructs a 1977 journey, by a Delhi street artist on a 6,000-mile trip to find the woman who had captured his heart, Curzon Bloomsbury, until 8 October; Lexi 7 October
* Hong Kong Film Festival, including Remanence: The (Un)erasable - Moving Image + lecture performance; I am fine, thank you + panel; Behind the Shadows; The Snowball on a Sunny Day; .Inherited Movements, many migrations; My Heart is That Eternal Rose. Until 4 October. Free virtual programme available online until 31 October. Info: HKFF
+ The return of the Hong Kong Film Festival
* Knife; The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, dramatic biopic of the writer’s life, career and recovery following a 2022 assassination attempt. The film includes footage shot by Rushdie’s wife, visual artist Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Curzon Bloomsbury, Garden until 8 October
+ Rushdie film: ‘It’s not just about me. It’s about freedom’
* Cotton Queen, in a Sudanese cotton-farming village, teenage Nafisa grows up on her matriarch grandmother's heroic tales of resistance against British colonisers. But when an ambitious businessman arrives with genetically engineered cotton and a high-stakes development plan, Nafisa finds herself at the centre of a battle for her village's future, Vues Fulham Broadway and Westfield Stratford City; ICA, Institut francais, until 8 October,
* Kikuyu Land, while investigating Kenya's global tea industry, Nairobi journalist Bea Wangondu stumbles upon her own family's concealed secrets, pushing her to peel back the layers of Kenya's colonial legacy, Curzon Bloomsbury until 7 October; Garden 7, 13 October
+ Two Kenyans fight on for a glimpse of paradise
* London Latino Film Festival, community-led, non-profit festival, ICA, The Mall, until 6 October. Info: Festival
Monday 5 October
* Life Support, since October 2023 Gaza has been sealed from the world except for international doctors who find a humanitarian crisis and a dismantling of life itself + Q&A with director Daniele Rugo, Victoria Rose and Robert Del Naja, 6.10pm + 8.55pm, Lexi
+ Phone calls from the Gaza apocalypse
Wednesday 7 October
* Critical Affection Trilogy, Michelle Williams Gamaker presents his reimagination of overlooked film histories that challenge the colonial and imperialist narratives of early British and Hollywood cinema + discussion, 6.20pm, £15.50, Barbican
from Wednesday 7 October
* BFI London Film Festival, this is the big one - films from everywhere, for everyone. Features, shorts, immersive and extended reality, discussions, free events, until 18 October. Info: Festival website
+ Africa, Asia and Latin America at the London Film Festival
PERFORMANCE
* Darkllng, one-woman show on the impact of the 1984 Bhopal industrial disaster in India, £15 - £45, Bush Theatre, 7 Uxbridge Road, W12 8LJ until 24 October. Info: Bush
+ A bleak story that needs to be re-told
* The First Year (of the Gaza Genocide in the Media), BÉZNĂ Theatre’s multimedia investigation into the relationship between mainstream media, public opinion and state crime, £13 - £19, New Diorama Theatre, 15 - 16 Triton Street, Regent's Place, NW1 3BF, untll 10 October. Info: New Diorama + workshops: 5 Oct, Shadow World Investigations, 6-8pm; 6 Oct, Producing Political Theatre, 4-6pm; 9 Oct, International State Crime Initiative, 4-6pm
+ Angry response to the first year (of the Gaza Genocide)
* The Story, when a white teacher is killed in a black neighbourhood four journalists are forced to confront what they are prepared to risk to tell their version of the truth, National Theatre, South Bank SE1 9PX, until 24 October. Info: National
+ Blood of My Blood, South Carolina, 1862. As war rages beyond the plantation, Ginnie Good raises five children in a cabin that will outlast them all. Today, in the same cabin, now a trendy Airbnb, a pregnant Black woman communes with her ancestors, seeking answers to questions she's afraid to ask anyone else, £15-£30, Royal Court, Sloane Square, SW1W 8AS until 7 November. Info: Royal Court
* For coloured girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf, “Stories of love and violence, joy and survival - and what it feels like to come out the other side”, Yard, Queen’s Yard, White Post Lane, E9 until 17 October. Info: The Yard
* The Hungry Ghost, Mei Leng Yew’s sexy horror rom-com exploring what lies between superstition and rationality, £15 to £25. Bush Theatre, 7 Uxbridge Rd, W12 8LJ until 31 October. Info: Bush
from Tuesday 6 October
* Fences, alive with rhythms of blues and jazz, humour and heartbreak, August Wilson’s Pulitzer prize-winning masterpiece, set in the 1950s, is a portrait of grief, love and what it means to be a family in post-war Black America, £10 - £55, Lyric Hammersmith, Lyric Square, King Street, W6 0QL, until 31 October. Info: Lyric
TV and RADIO
Saturday 3 October
* The Golden Cobra, weird animated comedy series about an Indian takeaway in a small Welsh town, 11pm, BBC3
Sunday 4 Oct0ber
* This Cultural Life: Kwame Kwei-Armah, 1.30am, BBC4
Monday 5 October
* Global Eye, news magazine, 7pm, BBC2
* Michael Palin in The Philippines, part 2, thankfully less bland than the 83-year-old’s previous travelogue series, 9pm, Channel 5
* All We Imagine As Light, drama about the lives of three women in Mumbai, 10.20pm, Film4
* Wakhri, Pakistani drama, 2.50am, Channel4
Tuesday 6 October
* The Lost World of Tibet, 11.30pm, 1.55am, BBC4
Wednesday 7 October
* Sorry, I Didn’t Know,, Black comedy quiz, 11.35pm, ITV1
Thursday 8 October
* Alexander Armstrong in India, bland travelogue, and, to add insult to injury, the broadcaster’s name ranks higher than the name of the country, 10.05pm, Channel5