Halloween — a wonderful 24 hours dedicated to the horrendous, the foul and the deranged. Most conspiracy theorists think it was created by the candy companies in the United States to boost chocolate sales, but in fact, it is more storied (and less cynical) than that.
Dating back 2,000 years, Halloween began as the ancient festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in) in Ireland. The day marked the end of the summer and the harvest and the celebration of their New Year on November 1.
A suspicious bunch, the Celts believed that on the night before the New Year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. In a nutshell, folks from heaven and hell returned to earth for a night of bloodthirsty and murderous carnage. Charming.
These days, it’s an excuse for outrageous costumes and all night high jinks: a good excuse to behave as if daylight doesn’t exist. Plus, the clocks go back this weekend, so you get an extra witching hour to play with. So dust off that broom and summon the coven — for London’s got one hell of a line-up this year.
From fright bite menus to Sink the Pink at the Troxy, neon life-drawing classes to a chilling movie night at the guide to All Hallows’ Eve in London.
Paint the town red (rum)
It’s Halloween, hun — which means it’s time for Sink the Pink’s Halloween spectacular soirée. It’s so good it happens twice: on both tomorrow and Sunday at The Troxy. There’ll be glitter, garish costumes and pitch-perfect performances from the gender queer collective. The return of performer Queen of the Runway promises to take All Hallows’ Eve to new rainbow heights.
Tomorrow, the Mondrian’s Rumpus Room will go all out with its Malice in Wonderland party: an entire night themed around a gruesome interpretation of Lewis Carroll’s classic. There’ll be a zombie Alice, creepy Mad Hatter magician and a Cheshire Cat acrobat gliding around — make sure you get the full house for Instagram.
The Mansion London’s Halloween Ball tomorrow night will have cage dancers, three dance floors, hypnosis and all the R&B you can handle. The best-dressed voodoo king or queen will bag an all-expenses paid trip to New Orleans, too. Advice? Outdress Satan.
Tonight, Camden Assembly is holding a haunted hip hop night: expect pumpkins and pumping beats. If hip hop ain’t your jam, Fabric’s Halloween party tonight has three rooms devoted to jungle, drum ’n’ bass, UK garage and house music. And, never one to miss a costume party, Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club will be throwing a fabulous drag circus, Mariah and Friendz, tonight, and its Halloween House Party tomorrow evening: both nights, expect ghouls, glitter and toxic tunes.
Bart’s is holding a spooky speakeasy, and Maggie’s is having a spooky Eighties party, with “killer” Chambord cocktails.
Shoreditch gaff The Book Club is transforming into THE BRONZE — a night dedicated to all things Nineties and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Get there early so you don’t miss the life-drawing salon where you can sketch Spike’s perfect jaw line, and Xander’s sexy tousled locks.
For something slightly less intense, Goat in Chelsea is channelling the Wizarding World of Harry Potter with Goatwarts. Turn up in your finest robes for potion classes and — not innuendo — a wand duel.
Last but not least, there’s Annabel’s Mayfair OTT Halloween Party on Wednesday. If you’re lucky enough to know a member, get on your hands and knees and beg them to be their plus one. Details are top secret, but whatever they’ve got in store it’s going to be sick — in a good way. On entry, the club will be doing a collection for the DEC Indonesia Tsunami appeal so make sure you've got the coven credit card handy.
Ghoulish goings-on
In Covent Garden, Europe’s largest ever pumpkin currently sits resplendent, poised for selfie opportunity. The gargantuan plant is three feet high, weighs a tonne and took 110 days to grow — the mammoth thing deserves your respect. Queen of Hoxton is hosting a naked neon life-drawing class on Monday: a collective of nude UV zombies will be the eye candy, encouraging you to “think outside the box and create more unusual imagery”. The organisers promise it will be “quite vibrant”.
Scary movie fans should head to the Natural History Museum for a special Halloween slasher two-nighter in Hintze Hall, kicking off on Sunday. Flicks include cult classics The Blair Witch Project, The Silence of the Lambs, Ghostbusters and Stanley Kubrick’s spine chilling The Shining. You’ll also get free entry into the museum’s Life in the Dark exhibition, a blood-curdling exploration into nature’s dark side. Oh, and there’s popcorn, too.
The Prince Charles cinema in Soho also has a programme of chillers and thrillers, including The Exorcist and The Evil Dead (7 Leicester Place, WC2, princecharlescinema.com).
Fancy contacting the dead? Head to the Town Hall Hotel in Bethnal Green for A Week of Halloween Curiosities. Spanning Tuesday to Thursday, there’s a frightful bill including an interactive séance, and terrifying ghost stories, and an ultra spooky talk covering the history of the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic.
Delve deep into the paranormal with a ghost tour at Hampton Court Palace on Halloween night itself. And if you need somewhere to take the kids to burn off those trick or treat E numbers, Screamfest returns to the London Dungeon on Wednesday, with 20 horror stories and an underground vertical free-fall drop ride.
Trick or treats
You’ll need fuel for all this carousing. Start at Abuelo in Covent Garden, which is serving pumpkin and chai-spiced rum cocktails. Just around the corner, Balthazar is running a special Halloween menu from Monday to Sunday: the Instagram-friendly offerings include a pumpkin chocolate bomb. Smoke & Salt in Brixton is throwing a Dead Man’s Party for two nights from Wednesday. You’ll start off with a sacrificial offering (your boss?) before tucking into a six-course tasting menu.
Don’t leave your dog out of the action. The infamous doggy brunch returns to M restaurant in Victoria tomorrow: hounds can watch their humans struggle through a cook-for-your-dog masterclass, before enjoying the spoils, snuffling out treats on a pumpkin hunt, and — the grand finale — taking part in a fancy-dress competition. Ridiculous, but cute. Berner’s Tavern at the London Edition will be hosting a banquet, with tuna crudo, beetroot tartare, rib-eye steak and a pumpkin pie.
Tomorrow night, Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen is throwing a twisted disco themed along the Rocky Horror Show, and serving up tinctures including Mai Tai’s in medicine bottles. In Belgravia, The Hari is doing Moët Hennessy cocktails in potion bottles.
The Ivy Soho Brasserie is throwing a Thriller Night on Halloween, with live contortionists and a special a-la-carte menu and Black Rock in Shoreditch is hosting an evening of ghost stories, with buckets of Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ghost, and a menu of veggie haggis, baked oysters and soda bread.
