Lights Out In London

I'm putting on an evening of music, storytelling, wartime reminiscences, unimaginable harp music and the cinema from the end of the world. Without electricity. Please bring chopsticks and candles, and leave fossil-fuelled lighters and electronic communication devices at home.

If you're anywhere near the Bethnal Green Working Men's Club at about 7pm tonight, then the above sounds like another novel night out advertised by those wonderful folks at Pick Me Up.

Rational Rec put on evenings incorporating sound, music, text, performance, film and psychological experiments. Spending an evening without electricity certainly sounds like an interesting psychological experiment to us; and might even make for useful practice for when Ken forgets to pay the bill.

It's a fiver on the door, and the line-up runs as follows:

Marcia Farquhar, in Bisto Legs, will revisit some of the bright spots of the dark days of WWII. From stained legs to sausage meat ducks, with cheerful resourcefulness in the face of lack, Marcia and a bevy of lovelies will conjure bunker spirit from a candlelit world.

Opal Lorbin will play some piano tunes you may be able to hear.

Mark Espiner will lead a chorus of voices out of the pitch black.

Mervyn Millar will show us what's on at the cinema at the end of the world.

Rodhri Davies will play his harp in unimaginable ways.

Richard Wilson will intervene in the fabric of the room.

Kazuko Hohki will give a demonstration of her BINstruments

Helena Goldwater will invite us to enjoy a few minutes of watery intimacy with her. You won't be drenched but you may feel slightly moist.

Jem Finer will DJ on a hand-cranked sound system with old 78¹s heard through the iconic HMV horn. A soundtrack for when the lights have gone out and there¹s nothing left to burn.

Bohman & Paolini will regale us with surreal conversation and inane garden shed tinkering.

Aaron Williamson and Simon Raven as flamboyant, exhibitionist anti-singer and skulking keyboard player will introduce ŒThe Cattleprods, the world¹s first synth duo to play without electricity.

And there will be 'Drinking Songs', a convivial, communal percussion piece for raised glasses.