Summer's annual outdoor festival of free theatre from the National Theatre, Watch This Space, goes nomadic travelling around Lambeth and Southwark in July and August.
Bumped from South Bank's Theatre Square by the National's pop-up venue, this is a great opportunity for Watch This Space to reach kids and adults in new and diverse settings. St John's Church at Waterloo is the festival hub and St John's Church Fete Weekend opens the programme on Friday bringing free family fun in the shape of guerilla hairdressing, rebellious needlepoint, music and soggy cycling to the beautiful mosaic-filled gardens.
The programme is as original, colourful, imaginative and riotous as ever with micro-Shakespeare, quirky dance, insects, circus, acrobatics, street theatre, sword swallowing, radio plays and a nine metre long pig.
There will be entertainment at St John's every weekend, including guest appearances during Sunday services, but Watch This Space will also be popping up at local festivals including Waterloo Festival Fête (4-6 July), Waterloo Carnival and Jamboree on Millennium Green (4-6 July), Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens Summer Festival (12 July), Streatham Festival (10-13 July), Peckham Munch Festival (11-13 July), The Burgess Park Festival (16 August) and the Lambeth Country Show in Brockwell Park (19-20 July).
You'll find something going on at St John's every Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoon from this weekend till the end of August but the roving programme means you need to check the website carefully to find the fun near you.
Watch This Space Festival runs from 27 June to 31 August. Most shows are free and drop in. A High Street Odyssey is free but ticketed and Subterranean Sepoys and Words of War are £5/£4 concessions, tickets from National Theatre box office.
