Watch films for free at the BFI Mediatheque

This is a fantastic place. I've known about it for a while but only got round to visiting for the first time yesterday and will definitely be going back for more. The BFI Mediatheque is at the back of the BFI Southbank building (what used to be the National Film Theatre) and provides access to the thousands of films in the BFI national archive for free.

The place itself consists of a room with around a dozen viewing stations each with a screen and keyboard. Using it is very easy, you just turn up, register at the reception desk where you are allocated a station and given a unique login number and a set of headphones. Plug your headphones in, type in the login number and you're away. The only difficult bit is deciding what to watch!

As well as thousands of feature films, there are documentaries, short films, TV soaps operas, public information films, home movies and more covering all time periods since filming first began. Luckily, the BFI provide you with some ideas of where you might want to start such as their new collections which currently include 'Into the White: 100 Years of Polar Exploration on Screen' and 'Bogarde on the Box' featuring some of his small screen work.

The introductory suggestions also included 'Ten to try' which is where I started.  This included 'Heart of the Angel' which is the first thing I watched. It is a 40 minute documentary by Molly Dineen about the working life of the staff at Angel tube station, made in 1989, prior to the refurbishment that provided escalators and increased platform capacity at this busy underground station. It features disillusioned staff, grumpy customers, constant lift failures and an interesting insight into the work of those keeping the tube going after hours - the night-time cleaning and maintenance staff, doing dirty, unpleasant work in really grim conditions (the cleaning staff had such poor facilities they had to get changed on the platform).  The whole programme was a good reminder that the modern-day tube may not be perfect but some things have definitely improved. Molly Dineen has described it as her favourite of all the films that she's made and I can see why.

If you have something specific in mind, a search facility allows you to search for films by title, director, year, cast etc or to search for footage by genre or region. I didn't always find this very easy to use. I might just have failed to input the right information but when I tried searching for a film I was interested in ('The Go-Between' as I'd read and enjoyed L.P. Hartley's novel that it is based on) I was told there were no results found but I later found this same film just scanning through lists of the feature films available. I will have to go back to watch it another time.

That's a minor gripe though and overall I found it a great experience. My other highlights included:

• 'Ladies on Bicycles' (1899) - a very short (1 min) clip of Victorian ladies in long skirts demonstrating their slalom cycling skills.
• 'A Day in the Hayfields' (1904) - another short (3 mins) clip showing a long-changed rural way of life.
• 'The Battle of Kinder Scout' (1970) - a 20 minute documentary with Ewen McColl telling the story of the mass trespass in April 1932 which eventually paved the way for greater access for ramblers.
• 'Here's a Health to the Barley Mow' (1955) - showing the drinkers at the Ship Inn in Blaxhall in Suffolk enjoying a lively evening of folk singing and step dancing which concludes with everyone singing God Save the Queen at closing time (not something I expect you'd see nowadays).

One excellent feature is the 'Why not try?' section which appears at the end of the write-up of some of the films and leads you on to other similar clips you might also want to view. If you had the time (and there wasn't a 2 hour maximum booking) you could spend all day there following on from one clip to the next.

The BFI Southbank Mediatheque is open 12-8pm Tues-Sat and 12.30-8pm Sun (closed Mon except bank holidays) and is also available for school groups in the mornings. You can book a viewing session in advance if you want and that would probably be advisable if you're planning to visit in the evening or at week-ends. Three are also a number of other BFI Mediatheques around the UK. Happy Viewing!

Museum of 1951, Southbank

As part of the Festival of Britain celebrations, the Southbank Centre has converted part of the ground floor of the Royal Festival Hall into the Museum of 1951 which brings together various memorabilia and aretefacts associated with the original 1951 Festival. What I hadn't realised before I visited this was just how much the Festival of Britain really was a national celebration as opposed to something that took part in a small part of London. As well as nine other major events in London there were 'a constellation of events' around the country from book fairs to music concerts and the guides and leaflets from many of these local festivals are on display as are a number of photos of the various different celebrations.

One of the first exhibits you see is the 'Patchwork of the Century' which contains 100 squares depicting an historic event for each of the 100 years up to 1950. This impressive patchwork was made by 80 women with no previous experience of needlework in only two months. As well as major events such as the 1926 general strike and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 it also illustrates the engineering triumphs and social progress of the period so for example the opening of the Forth Road Bridge in 1890 is followed by the introduction of free education in 1891.

The other objects on display include a Meccano model of the Festival Ferris wheel and a selection of some of the many souvenirs made for the festival such as headscarves, ties, playing cards and jigsaw puzzles all bearing the distinctive festival emblem. There is also a brief explanation of the design of that emblem, some information about the architecture and design of the buildings on the Southbank Festival site and a replica of a 1950s living room.

Further insights into what the Festival was like for those attending are available in the film show. I only watched one of the three films on offer - Brief City - which was made by the Observer newspaper and gives a good impression of what the Southbank site was like during the festival with vast numbers of visitors enjoying themselves there. I particularly liked the images of crowds of people dancing elegantly at night on the concrete platforms outside the Royal Festival Hall. It was clearly a typical British summer as most have kept their coats on!

It's not a huge exhibition but it's definitely worth spending half an hour or so there if you're visiting the Southbank for any of the other Festival of Britain activities as it gives some historical context for the current celebrations. It is open until 4 September.

Summer on the South Bank

Both the National Theatre and the Royal Festival Hall (RFH) host regular free events (mainly live music) throughout the year but over the next few months there'll be lots more happening. The National Theatre's Watch this Space free festival has been running for a few years now and offers music, dance, circus and more in the square outside the theatre. There's not much detail available yet about this year's festival which starts on 1 July but I'm sure there'll be some interesting events on offer.

This year there is even more reason than usual to spend time around here as the South Bank Centre celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain with a 'festival of British culture and creativity' which includes a number of free performances and activities. I've already been along to a couple of events and hope to get along to several more.

 On Saturday 30th April, we took part in Billy's Big Busk with hundreds of us singing along to a range of songs led by Billy Bragg and many people also joining in on musical instruments. There were lots of guitars and a whole range of other instruments including saxophone, didgeridoo and percussion and it was great fun.

As usual Billy was good at engaging with the audience and he had a number of assistants who held up boards with the chords on to help those playing along. The songs included Billy's own (A13, A New England), old favourites (Daydream Believer) and recent hits (Adele's Rolling in the Deep). A couple getting married at the RFH that day were invited on stage to sing along to Shotgun Wedding! I only managed to take a couple of pictures as I was too busy enjoying myself but there are loads more in the link above.


We were back again last Saturday for some more music as the Magpie's Nest had organised various folk singing and dancing activities. We also spent some time exploring what else is on offer. This includes a food market behind the RFH, a beach and a series of beach huts next to the river and a garden on the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. This last was my favourite. They have planted a wildflower meadow which should be wonderful when it is in bloom. There are also lots of raised beds with vegetables, soft fruit and herbs and even a cafe, so you can while a way an hour or so with a beer or coffee. When we visited it was relatively quiet up there compared to the hustle and bustle below but I guess that may change as people discover it.

There is also a Festival Museum which I plan to visit another time. The festival runs until 4 September and details of all the events are available here. This week-end the focus is on singing with a range of choral activities and the following week-end it's classical music.

It looks like it is going to be a great summer on the South Bank.

Postcards from the Future

Another exhibition of photos but this time instead of depicting the streets of London over the last century and a half, these pictures illustrate what the capital might look like at some unspecified time in the future when climate change has had a significant impact on every aspect of London life.

The pictures were created by Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones who are described as 'future-illustrators with a deep interest in the environment' and the sight of familiar landmarks in very unfamiliar situations is very striking. The picture above is from the artists' blog and shows one of the photos in the exhibition. This one imagines a time when London is, by necessity, self-sufficient in food and Parliament Square has been transformed into rice paddies. The roads appear to be free of traffic and the fields are being ploughed by water-buffalo. It's not clear whether MPs are still sitting in the House of Commons and passing this every day on their way in!

There are several pictures depicting various forms of electricity generation in the capital. Whilst some, such as tidal power stations around the Thames Barrier, and even a wind farm on the Mall (the turbines fit in quite well between the flagpoles) don't look too out of place, I can't imagine the nuclear power station in Kew Gardens going down too well!

Other images show the impact of extreme changes of climate in other countries as refugees from equatorial lands move north when their homelands become uninhabitable. In one The Gherkin has been converted in to high rise housing and is rapidly becoming a slum. In others shanty towns surround Buckingham Palace and cover Trafalgar Square.

The exhibition is thought-provoking and certainly worth seeing for the striking images whatever your views on climate change. However, I felt slightly more explanation might have been helpful in some cases. It wasn't clear to me whether the pictures were all supposed to illustrate different aspects of the same scenario or to show alternative possible outcomes. So, for example, was the picture of flooded London what followed when the frozen Thames pictured elsewhere melted or are these completely separate scenarios. In another example, the explanation for one of the pictures relating to refugees says the global econony has collapsed as a result of devastation in many countries but the text for another picture which shows camels replacing horses on Horse Guards Parade as a result of increasing temperatures suggests that tourism remains important to the London economy.

For a small exhibition - there are around a dozen images in total - this certainly left me with a lot to think about. You can view the images on their blog but I would recommend visiting the exhibition if you can as the full-size versions are much more impressive. It's on in the Olivier Theatre Exhibition Area on Level 1 at the National Theatre until 30 May.