Get on the Bussey

Pride of Peckham right now, in my book, is the Bussey Building. I keep telling people it’s an old cricket-bat factory that was saved from demolition in 2007. The second part is true. And whatever this multi-floored warehouse, tucked behind the hair-extension shops opposite Peckham Rye station, was originally, it is now one of London’s best venues. Seriously.

Hideaway entrance with street art by Phlegm

The building originally thrived as a rave venue and you’ll find the joint jumping come the weekends with club nights, and its roof more often than not thronged with revellers on summer evenings – as busy as Frank’s Campari Bar, which you can see on the other side of the railway line.
I’m a bit of a newcomer to the Bussey, but in the space of one month I’ve been to two theatre events there and will be coming back for more.
The first play, We Will Be Free, was the story of English history’s early trade unionists, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, told in the Mummer tradition with the two leads playing all the parts, as well as all the musical instruments. My pal Hilary had studied the period at O-Level, and we decided it was much more fun learning it this way.

Tolpuddle tales from a cast of two

My latest Bussey outing was on Monday night. This time it was for an Opera In Space (operainspace.org) version of Hansel & Gretel by 19th-century composer Engelbert Humperdinck. It was an immersive-style production and we kicked off in the bar with the crooning of cabaret singer Honey Rouhani, moving seamlessly into the first act featuring Hansel (mezzo Katie Slater) and Gretel (soprano Silvie Gallant).

Hansel & Gretel kicks off with a chanteuse

We then followed a ‘guide’ up the next floor, a spooky forest glade hung with green tinsel trees. In act two, we sat on the floor and watched as the children fell asleep with a song I think I remember my brother and I singing in a competition when we were under-tens.

The forest scene in act two

For act three we moved up another floor into a crisp, white set, where the kids came face to face with the witch, a menacing Rhonda Browne, dressed in skin-tight black and neon latex.

Witch on wheels

The singing was highly accomplished, the atmosphere wonderfully cosy and my friend Filippa was even pulled out of the crowd to do a little dance with Hansel. 

Streets ahead

I was very happy this year, on returning to East Dulwich after four months away, to find that more than a few gable ends and tucked-away corners had been decorated with eye-catching street art.

Work by My Dog Sighs, in front of the designated
Street Art House, at 265 Lordship Lane

We’d had Stik in the neighbourhood last year – my friend Trish made him a cup of tea when she found him painting his stick people on the wall opposite her flat.

Stik 2012 piece, inspired by The Guardian Angel
by Marcantonia, at the Dulwich Picture Gallery

But this latest work seemed to involve at least a dozen different street artists. I recognised the styles and tags of some of the biggest movers and shakers of the spray-can world. I freelanced in Shoreditch for a spell, home to iconic street art works, such as ROA’s huge hedgehogs. And here he was, doing his thing in SE22. It seemed such an unlikely suburban setting.

ROA’s canine skeleton at the back of  265 Lordship Lane,
inspired by dogs in paintings at the gallery

Conor Harrington’s duellists, by the EDT,
inspired by violent themes in the gallery’s art

I discovered that the series had been commissioned by the Dulwich Picture Gallery in the summer, as part of a Baroque the Streets festival. The gallery worked with Stik in 2012 and wanted to make a bigger splash. So they persuaded a selection of up-for-it businesses and homeowners to donate the canvases, from empty walls to garage doors. One entire house just round the corner from me, at 265 Lordship Lane – due to be demolished but curiously still standing – was taken over, named the Street Art House, and painted to within an inch of its life.

A joint effort from Malarky & Mr Penfold, at 265 Lordship Lane

Italian-born RUN was inspired by Nicolas Poussin’s
Triumph of David at 265 Lordship Lane

Each artist was invited to take inspiration from a painting or work of art in the Dulwich Picture Gallery and create their own interpretation. The result is an outdoor gallery that can be enjoyed by anyone, giving my neighbourhood a bit of the edge it has lost in recent years.

Remi Rough & System’s Girl in a Window after the
Rembrandt painting in the gallery, opposite ED station

Happily the SE22 murals are all still in great shape. I did a walking tour recently, with my nephew Rory, who served as a useful perspective to the grand scale of some of these pieces.

Phlegm, from Sheffield, depicts a horn player
from detail in Poussin’s Triumph of David

Brazil’s Nunca created a tea-drinking Queen Bee,
representing colonialism, at The Plough

A piece by Broken Fingaz Crew,
in front of 265 Lordship Lane

Tunnel vision

In the nine years I've been singing with the London Bulgarian Choir, we've performed in some weird and wonderful venues around London. If a barge on the River Thames and Westminster Abbey count among the most wonderful, then the Thames Tunnel entrance shaft must be in the running for the most weird. Located in Rotherhithe, south-east London, we were there last month for a concert with an indie-folk singer who goes by the name of Wilderthorn. 
Access to the venue was a performance in itself. First there was a clamber over a wall with only metal pins to step on, then a crawl through a low passageway and, finally, a clatter down two storeys of a tall metal scaffolding tower to the floor of the entrance shaft, all in full Bulgarian costume, mind.

About to enter the tunnel's passageway, having cleared the first hurdle 

Stooping to crawl through the passageway into the shaft space

The tunnel was created by Marc Brunel (father of Isambard Kingdom), who pioneered a tunnelling shield method of digging and building under a river. It was the first tunnel under the Thames and quite a sightseeing draw in its day – described as the Eighth Wonder of the World when it opened in 1843. You can still see where the staircase wound its way down. 

The Thames Tunnel when it was a Victorian tourist attraction

Though it had been conceived as a freight tunnel, the company underwriting the project ran out of the funds needed to make the ramps necessary to convey horse-drawn carts down to the tunnel. In 1865 it was taken over by a railway company and used by trains and, more recently, became the tunnel used by the Overground route between Wapping and Rotherhithe. It was then, in 2010, that a concrete floor was suspended over the tunnel, so that the former entrance and ventilation shaft could be used as a concert venue and tourist attraction (managed by Rotherhithe's Brunel Museum).

Feeling as if we've landed on the set of a Peter Greenaway film

The interior, all train-smoke blackened walls and dusty atmospherics, was lit by dozens of candles with a few spotlights attached to the scaffold. It was a sell-out gig – only room for 100 or so in the audience – so the ambience was warm and buzzing, everyone delighted with themselves for finding this place… for being cool Londoners.

The audience perspective during the choir's solo set

The choir kicked off with a solo set, the dissonant chords of our trusty concert-starter Izreyala Yasna Zwezda, reverberating around the circular space. Our songs were underscored by the bass notes of the occasional train, rumbling along the tunnel beneath us. The Wilderthorn headline set followed and we joined in with backing vocals and drones on four of the songs. 

The London Bulgarian Choir adding dissonance to Wilderthorn's set

The audience were very close to us and it was interesting to see reactions. One Bulgarian woman had come to see Wilderthorn and was moved to tears by the bonus surprise of discovering a Bulgarian choir. She'd lived in London for years and had no idea there was a choir singing the music of her home country. 
We thought the quirky shape and acoustics of the venue were perfect for our sound and are seeking a stand-alone concert date. Watch this space…