London’s East festival

There’s a six day festival called East that starts this week celebrating the culture of London’s East End through its varied history, art, music, food and fashion. The East End’s had a changing population of working class and immigrant people over the years and this festival reflects that history. There are music, dance and theatre performances at venues throughout the area, special events and sales on at many of the fashion stores and markets, as well exhibitions at galleries and special club nights around there.

East opens on 1st March at 6pm with an hour long peal of the bells at St Paul’s Cathedral followed by bell ringing at over 20 east End churches that will finish around 8pm at St Botolph, Aldgate. The East End has been the home of many different incoming immigrant groups including French Huguenots, Jews, Bengalis and others and you can see their food influence at the TasteEast food festival at Crispin Place, Spitalfields from 2-3 March. As well as the food on offer they’ll be cooking demonstrations, Bollywood, Jewish and Gypsy music, as well as cocktail and champagne bars.

The Museum in Docklands has a programme of events for the whole week of East and admission to the museum is also free for this week and its well worth a visit to see their regular exhibits. The Museum of London, its sister museum, is also taking part and the events its putting on are also free.

There’s a varied programme of theatre, film and music at a whole lot of venues such as the Barbican, Sadlers Wells and the Hackney Empire and there are a number of sales and fashion demonstrations at shops and markets during the week including Spitalfields’s Antiques and Fashion and Art Markets.
East is on from 1-6 March.