Wilton’s Summer Festival

It is not every day one is presented with the opportunity to be entertained in the oldest surviving music hall in the world, surrounded by the echoes of inhabitants from yesteryear including missionaries, soldiers from both world wars, circus performers, puppets and contortionists. Wait… unlikely as it is to find yourself in such a location, one step through the dilapidated and hidden door of Wilton’s Music Hall – observantly subtitled ‘The City’s Hidden Stage’ as anyone who has circled Graces Alley will agree – and you find yourself transported into a world where anything is possible.

Living proof (just) of this mantra, Wilton’s Music Hall began its life when the eponymous John Wilton transformed five terrace houses into a music hall in 1858, going on to provide a home for missionaries, survive two world wars, functioned as a rag warehouse, bomb shelter, and then, become the bane of any health and safety inspectors life. Thankfully, the Wilton’s Music Hall Trust has managed to prolong Wilton’s eccentric history and while the walls may be crumbling, the floor uneven and the entire second floor a no-go area, Wilton’s continues to present one of the most eclectic and inspiring programmes of events in London.

Inspired by their own predilection for reinvention and reimagining, Wilton’s Anthropomorphic Summer Festival presents an incredible array of comedy, magic shows, puppetry, contortionists, circus acts, classical concerts and ping pong.

With a programme big enough to make the hall’s precarious wooden beams strain, Wilton’s Summer Festival is guaranteed to keep us busy until hibernation.

Providing a unique backdrop for the London Comedy Film Festival, Wilton’s plays host to A Week of Transformations (8–12 August) screening body-swapping comedy classics such as Big, Tootsie and Teen Wolf all accompanied by live acts ranging from contortionist Rubber Ronnie, ventriloquist comedienne Nina Conti and some special surprise guests. Running alongside these screenings is a specially commissioned exhibition, Sideshow, featuring drawings and poetry exploring the lives of ye olde fairgrounds, carnivals and penny gaffs of England.

Other highlights include Franz Ferdinand’s Nick McCarthy as he creates a live musical score for a one-man puppet show interpretation of Shakespeare classic The Tempest, (7–9 September) featuring songs from his last album reinterpreted by Steven Merritt of The Magnetic Fields, bringing a contemporary twist to classical theatre in Wilton’s archaic surroundings.

Inspired by William Blake’s prophetic poems, Wilton’s Artistic Associate Peter Case presents Visions of Tiriel and the Daughters of Albion (17–19 August) reinterpreting texts from the 1700s using puppets, projections, dance, live music and physical performance.

Partnering with the Barbican Blaze Festival and CREATE, Wilton’s will also host a number of classical music concerts including The Kreutzer Quartet and violinist Alina Ibragimova, winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award 2011. Also produced by the Barbican, Aldeburgh Music and Lumin present the fascinating Faster Than Sound: Brainwaves, a unique exploration of the relationship between art and science coinciding with the fortieth anniversary of the MRI scanner as it inspires sounds and celebrations of the development of technology.

Wilton’s Anthropomorophic Summer Festival is taking place until 7 September at:

1 Graces Alley
Whitechapel
E1 8JB

Tel: 020 7702 2789