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After hours: the evening edit
A different kind of night out.
Not every evening needs to end in the same places. For those, like Saskia Devereaux, looking for something more engaging than the usual routine, there is a different kind of night out, a curated programme of evening and night school classes open to everyone across London.
Discover the 10 most interesting, exciting and unusual evening classes in London this fall
Saskia's journey into one of London's best kept secrets, its huge number of evening classes, happened almost by accident. As Halloween approached a friend sent her a message about an unusual evening class run by Tom Waters, a distinguished academic, but also an expert on witchcraft and magic. 'At first we treated it as a joke between ourselves, but one night over a glass of wine we said, "let's enrol". And the rest is history, so to speak.'
In the daytime, Tom Waters is a history lecturer at Imperial College London, one of the world's top universities. But at night he becomes an adult education tutor, specialising in courses on the occult. They are not courses in magic, but an opportunity to discover something about the history of witchcraft and magic, and why people still believe in it today.
Imperial is only one of over a dozen evening class providers in London, with other well-known names including Morley College, the City Lit and WM College, as well as almost all the city's universities. Although courses run all year round, most start in the fall, coinciding with the start of the new school year.
Other unusual courses include a creative writing course at City Lit, called Writing Myths and Fairytales. On that course you can experiment with rewriting the Greek myths or children's fairy tales to give them a contemporary twist. More unusual still is City Lit's course in stand-up comedy, or how about Morley College's course called Singing for those who Cannot Sing?
Here we curate 10 of what we think are the most interesting, exciting and unusual evening classes in London this fall. If none of them appeal, don't worry, there's a whole lot more out there!
10
Wednesdays 18:00 - 20:00
All things being equal, Punjabi shouldn't be an unusual language to learn in a global city like London, when there are over 150 million Punjabi speakers in the world. But it is a surprisingly difficult language to find on any evening class lists in London. So why not take the plunge and learn a new language outside of the traditional favourites of Italian, French and Spanish?
9
Wednesdays 14:00 - 16:00
Unbuilt London invites you to explore an alternative history of the capital, tracing the bold, curious and sometimes alarming schemes that were proposed but never realised. Taught by architectural historian Robert Smith, the course navigates a city of imagined futures, from visionary transport networks and monumental buildings to utopian plans for wholesale redevelopment, including proposals as audacious as building an airport above King's Cross station. We are encouraged to weigh ambition against consequence, asking which ideas might have transformed London for the better, and which it is fortunate to have avoided.
8
Wednesdays 10:00 - 17:00
This is the style I want please: Okay, so you've probably wandered around the mosaics in a museum or archaeology site in Italy or the Greek island, and thought they look amazing. But have you ever thought how they were made. At WM College in Camden Town you can find out on the practical course where you will get to create your own mosaic tile. You might not be quite up to the standards of Pompeii or the Roman villa at Casale, but it will get you started on a fascinating new craft. And as they say, Rome wasn't built in a day.
7
Saturdays 11:00 - 17:00
Apparently academic researchers have looked at Tutankhamun’s underwear and concluded that the boy-king of Ancient Egypt was decidedly ‘pear-shaped’. On this course we are invited to explore King Tut's underwear, or rather his wardrobe, which included over surviving 500 items. So, what exactly did the boy king wear, and what does this reveal about his physique?
6
Wednesdays 18:00 - 20:00
Okay, I know the Bayeux Tapestry is technically an embroidery and not a tapestry, but that doesn't mean we cannot include the possibility of a tapestry weaving course in our list. This course at Imperial, taught by textile artist Blue, is aimed at complete beginners. Tapestry weaving is one of the oldest and most immediate forms of making. The transformation of thread into textile through rhythm, structure, and touch is astonishing.
5
Thursdays 18:00 - 20:00
If you are wondering what Archaeoastronomy is, then join the club. We had to look it up too. Basically it is looking at sites like Stonehenge, Coricancha and the Egyptian pyramids and asking what did the people who built them believe was the connection to the stars and the planets in the night sky. On this course we are going to discover how past cultures understood celestial phenomena and incorporated them into architecture, religion and their understanding of the world.
4
Wednesdays 18:00 - 20:00
If you thought Victorian photography is just sepia photographs of stiff-looking people who never smiled, and look like they all have broom handles up their backs, think again. On this evening class Arthur Charlesworth promises us a very different vision of Victorian photography. We'll discover how the Victorians manipulated photographic images to create pictures of fairies and ghosts, developed a new visual language to understand life in the ever-expanding cities, and how women like Margaret Cameron took up photography and used it to create a brand new art form.
3
Tuesdays 18:00 - 20:00
From smoky clubs and street parades to concert halls and global festivals, this course explores the rich and evolving world of jazz in all its forms. We are promised a weekly journey through the history of jazz, from its roots in blues, ragtime and early New Orleans styles to swing, bebop, cool jazz, fusion and contemporary developments.
2
Mondays 11:00 - 12:30
Hot on the heels of Katy Hessel's best-selling book, The Story of Art Without Men, and last year's blockbuster Tate Britain show Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920, this course looks at women artists from a period often considered a golden age of British art, but one in which women have been conspicuously absent. Beginning with pioneering figures such as Emily Mary Osborn and Elizabeth Thompson (Lady Butler), and on to Laura Knight and artists of the Bloomsbury Group, we will see how women forged professional careers in an art world that was often histile to them.
1
Mondays 19:00 - 21:00
Starting in October, Spellbound is an immersive journey through the history and practice of magic, spell-craft, and the occult, from the ancient world to the present day. Taught by acclaimed author and historian Dr. Tom Waters, we are invited to navigate the enigmatic realms of witches, shamans and fortune-tellers and to unearth the cultural roots of curses, ghosts and protective talismans. Adults only.
These are just a few of the thousands of courses available in London, so if none of these sound appealing, have a look around at the others and happy learning.
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