(Picture by Homemade London.)
The London arts-world place to be this week seems to be the Barbican, which is busily celebrating its 25th birthday (it’d better watch out, another year and it won’t qualify for a Young Person’s Rail Card any more). As part of the celebration, it’s running the Barbican Bigscreen, which is pretty much what the name sounds like: a big screen. Over the course of the week, there’ll be free films throughout, including Kind Hearts and Coronets and Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds’s End; there’ll also be free live music, at lunchtimes and late, and on Tuesday there’s even free popcorn.
If all the music and movies and excitement are too much for you, you can wander across to the recently-opened Panic Attack! Art in the Punk Years — how can you go wrong with an exhibition that has an exclamation mark in its name? Or there’s Marjetica Potrc’s startling Forest Rising, an installation of an “island community” set up indoors on top of dozens of huge tree-trunks.
When you’re finished there, you can wander back outside to the Bigscreen event, and see what’s going on: more movies (Some Like It Hot, The Ladykillers), string quartets, cellists, jazz, even a “polyphonic choir from the French Alps”. They’re hoping to reach 100,000 visitors over the week, and you can help them reach the mark, just by turning up and having fun.
Barbican Bigscreen: Broadgate Arena, The Barbican, June 11-15, 11 a.m. till 11 p.m. Entry free.
Forest Rising: The Barbican, 24 May to 2 September.Free entry.
Panic Attack!: The Barbican, 5 June to 9 September, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. (or 6 p.m. on Tuesdays). £8.
