BAC held a special 20th birthday Twin Peaks Weekender for David Lynch's TV series over the weekend. All 30 episodes were shown in the Grand Hall. And the audience, in costume, in sleeping bags, in fortresses of pillows, lay down and watched. And watched, and watched, and watched some more. For 32 hours. As tribute, as celebration, as durational artistic endeavour, the Twin Peaks Weekender was what fans love to do and what BAC is good at organising: the pairing was as successful as damn fine coffee with cherry pie.
Twin Peaks is still gripping, weird and scary TV; David Lynch's small town mystery stands the test of time, possibly better than the X-Files, Lost, Flashforward and other 'freaky' TV shows after it. It also stood the BAC Weekender test of time: the unbroken screening made the tangled loves, business double-dealing and horrible truth of Laura Palmer's murder easier to follow - and much scarier to rediscover. Bleary-eyed individuals in pyjamas tiptoed through the echoing corridors of BAC looking for the toilets at 3.45am. Cold tiles underfoot, flickering lights overhead and far too many free coffee refills enhanced the creepy sensation that we were between worlds, in Agent Dale Cooper's dream and Bob was coming for us too. The Weekender could have felt like a large-scale indulgence in a DVD boxset at home but watching it this way was a grander and more rewarding gesture of Twin Peaks worship.
Lynchian unease combined with lower back ache from 20 hours (the length of Londonist's effort) on a slowly deflating airbed was eased by the hot food, doughnuts, coffee and cheerfulness in the specially set-up Double R Diner in the BAC cafe. The artist shrines to Laura, log lady life drawing class during the dinner break, plus live action oddities in The Black Lodge during the night were nice touches too. As a weekend getaway still within Zone 2, we thoroughly recommend Twin Peaks via BAC. Let's hope there's another one soon.
Read Twitter updates from the event with the #lynchlockin hashtag
Want more? There's also the Twin Peaks UK Festival at Hammersmith Riverside Studios next month.
