Garden variety: a look at the Geffrye Museum’s plans for their grounds this month
A period of calm: The Geffrye Museum period gardens in summer. Photograph: Mandy Williams
As you may recall from our May profile of museum director Sonia Solicari, the interior of Hoxton’s Geffrye Museum of the Home will lie dormant, save for the graft of booted and helmeted construction workers, from January 2018 to Autumn 2019.
While the exciting upgrade takes hold, the garden areas will still provide a home for many a performance, market and cocktail. To get a sense of what this might look like, one can look to the Geffrye’s July programme in the gardens.
The Rose and the Bulbul started out life in the cultural hotspot of Luton, and is the brainchild of innovative Asian music/dance charity Kadam.
The performance takes place in a promenade fashion – the young boy Bulbul and his new friend Rose will flow through the Geffrye’s many ornate gardens from throughout history, in what’s said to be a “moving story of love and acceptance between people from different cultural backgrounds”.
Ticketholders are advised to “dress appropriately for the weather”, whatever that may end up being, for the big show on 20 July at 7pm. Tickets cost £6; £5 concessions for a limited period only.
‘A moving story of love and acceptance’: the two title characters from The Rose and the Bulbul. Photograph: Kadam
After that, the following weeks in Geffrye’s gardens are more about the tipple than the theatre.
From 21 to 23 July, focus turns to that much maligned fine wine rosé, (my mum’s favourite, incidentally. Hi mum!) The Rosé Festival will showcase thirty varieties of pink plonk (plus other, less controversial booze) and attendees can chow down on street food to the strains of opera and jazz. Tickets: £15.
More regular events are also on the cards for July: the Garden Variety bar will feature a new expert bartender every time it is put on. They’ll mix drinks inspired by the period gardens. Thursday and Friday evenings from 27 July – 1 September, from 5pm.
Geffrye Food Market will also continue into the summer, every Sunday in the front gardens, from 11am to 3pm.