The Battersea Arts Centre is a fantastic building, just a quick walk down the road from Clapham Junction. Gorgeous big staircases, a cafe, little corridors leading to unexpected stages, bee patterns tiled into the walls; what is there not to like?
(Picture by PuRpLeOoZe.)
In January this year there was a brief panic when it was announced that the Centre’s funding from Wandsworth Council was going to be withdrawn, but that’s blown over, and it’s back to BAC business as usual: comedy (the second half of its N20 Comedy Festival, with Robin Ince and Josie Long, has just concluded), cheap-to-attend “scratch” performances of work still in development, theatre (the current play is Food, about the world of Michelin stars and celebrity chefs), and occasionally something really really odd.
The Masque of the Red Death is one of those really really odd things. From Punchdrunk, who performed Faust last year over a five-storey abandoned warehouse in Wapping, it’s based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe, and it’s going to revisit the nineteenth-century past of the Battersea Arts Centre with a performance that ranges through all the rooms and corridors in the building.
The show doesn’t start until mid-September, but the Friday and Saturday night performances (with an after-show party) have already sold out, and the other nights are following quickly. Last year Faust sold out well before the end of its run, and it looks like Masque of the Red Death might do the same before the first performance, so make sure you’re quick if you want to go. If previous form is anything to go on, it’ll be fantastic; and even if it isn’t, you’ll get to spend a few hours poking around a wonderful building.
The Masque of the Red Death: Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill, London, SW11 5TN. 17 September - 25 October, 7:15 or 7:45. £30. Not suitable for children under 14.
