Engage. Support. Enjoy.

This Autumn, come and visit our DX3 exhibition in our upstairs GO TO Space!

DX3 celebrates our artistic philosophy through the lens of our material culture. It is available to visit whenever we have other events at the Soho Poly / GO TO.

You can see the exhibition catalogue here: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/6d160e2787.html

 

1 October is World Postcard Day This year’s theme is ‘Paper Bridges’ marking how a small piece of cardboard can connect sender and recipient.We’d love people to celebrate World Postcard Day by sending, or making a postcard – perhaps even a Soho Poly one. Postcards have been a really important part of our activities at the Soho Poly, we were delighted to win an award for one of our projects this year. Postcard Day? At the Soho Poly its Postcard Year, watch this space for developments….

Opera Open Rehearsal

Wednesday 14th October, 5:30pm at GoTo

“The Telephone” by Menotti

About the open rehearsal

Open rehearsals give audiences a view of the work that happens before a performance. For the community, they offer an informal and welcoming way to experience opera, with no tickets to buy and no expectations about etiquette, and a chance to see how a production is made and to ask questions. For the company, they offer the opportunity to share work in progress with a live audience, gather early responses, and build lasting relationships with the communities it hopes to serve. Everyone is welcome, whether opera is familiar or entirely new.

 

About the project

Ben has one question to ask Lucy. Lucy is very busy on the phone. Menotti’s sharp, funny one-act opera has been making audiences laugh since 1947, and its battle between love and the ringing handset feels more relevant with every notification. This autumn, Opera UnTouched takes it out of the theatre and into the places where we work and create, with a 40-minute production performed in offices, co-working spaces and places of co-creation across London.  Alongside the tour, Opera UnTouched is running a schools project in the communities where it performs. Students create their own short operas set in their school environment, then perform them for their peers and families, discovering that opera can be accessible, creative and theirs to make. The project is funded by Arts Council England.

Join us at Soho Poly on Wednesday 14th October at 5:30pm for a free open rehearsal of the production. Meet director Valeria Perboni, music director Adrian Salinero, and our cast, Stephen Whitford as Ben and Grace Watkins (also Opera UnTouched’s Artistic Director) as Lucy. See how the scenes are staged, how the music is shaped, and how a 1940s comedy finds its place in the modern workplace. Whether you’re a seasoned opera-goer or have never set foot in a rehearsal room, come along. Entry is free, and please do put your phone on silent.

Limited spaces, to book email: grace@operauntouched.co.uk

12.00pm-2.00pm

Fancy a crafty utopian hangout? Drop by one of our Badge Cafe lunchtimes for some free, easy, friendly creative fun, reusing old pics, books and mags to make unique badges. Hosted by Ben Walters. See more at https://badgecafe.com/and @badgecafe on Insta.

7.00pm-9.00pm

Soho Poly Poetry is back!

In the first event of the 26/27 series, we’re excited to welcome Anthony Joseph, JLM Morton, Nadine El-Enany and Troy Cabida to the basement stage.

 

Anthony Joseph, F.R.S.L., is an award-winning Trinidad-born poet, novelist, academic, and musician. His 2022 poetry collection, Sonnets for Albert, won the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry 2022 and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry. He is the author of five poetry collections and three novels. His 2018 novel, Kitch: A Fictional Biography of a Calypso Icon, was shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award, and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Fiction. As a musician, he has released nine critically acclaimed albums. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Lecturer in Creative Writing at King’s College London.

 

JLM Morton’s poetry has featured on BBC6 Music and is published in Poetry Review, Poetry London, Rialto, Magma, Mslexia and The London Magazine. She is the winner of the Geoffrey Dearmer, Laurie Lee and Poetry Archive Worldview Prizes and was highly commended by the Forward Prizes. Her debut poetry collection is Red Handed (Broken Sleep Books, 2024). Her second is Borrowed Ground, a Poetry Book Society Book of the Week (2026).

 

Nadine El-Enany was joint winner of the James Berry Poetry Prize in 2024, when she also won the Newcastle University Chancellor’s Poetry Prize. Her poetry has appeared in publications including, The Poetry Review, The Rialto, Magma, fourteen poems and Butcher’s Dog. Her first collection of poems, Pelican Daughter, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2026. She teaches law and is the author of (B)ordering Britain: Law, race and empire (Manchester University Press, 2020), co-author of Empire’s Endgame: Racism and the British State (Pluto Press, 2021), and co-editor of After Grenfell: Violence, Resistance and Response (Pluto Press, 2019). She lives in London.

 

Troy Cabida is the author of Neon Manila (2025), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. His pamphlets include War Dove (2020) and Symmetric of Bone: poems after Elsa Peretti (2024), a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice. An alum of the Barbican Young Poets, Troy is currently co-editor for fourteen poems and library assistant for the National Poetry Library.

 

Books and pamphlets will be available to purchase on the night.

Drinks and refreshments will also be available.

 

Please note that free student and lower income tickets are available and we aim to make each night affordable and accessible to all. Please contact Hannah Copley on social media or on h.copley@westminster.ac.uk to join the guestlist.

 

About the series

Soho Poly Poetry is a monthly event series held in the heart of London. Now in its third year, and drawing on the Soho Poly’s history of radical and disruptive theatre and music, the events bring together poets and performers for collaborative, innovative and genre-bending work, as well as celebrating new and up-and-coming voices alongside more established writers. Curated and hosted by Hannah Copley.

 

About the Soho Poly

Recently restored after lying vacant for over 30 years, the Soho Poly is an inclusive community hub for creativity, culture and wellbeing. It offers community engagement and diverse programming and provides a contemporary performance and education venue for the London arts community. Creative directors: Matt Morrison and Guy Osborn.

 

Soho Poly Poetry is supported and made possible by Peter Bonfield, Vice Chancellor of the University of Westminster

We’ve been delighted to offer R&D support to Josephine Starte’s brilliant new play ‘blackberries’ this month, and are very excited to be hosting two staged readings on 22nd October 1PM & 4PM

About blackberries

Following a disastrous birthday trip, unemployed and grieving the death of her estranged father, Ros is gifted a childhood favourite book by her girlfriend, Kiki. Set in an idealised 1920s English village, this kitsch, cosy fiction opens a door to intoxicating escapism, where Ros develops an insatiable, unnerving love for an imagined rural past.

blackberries is a darkly comic ménage à trois between two women and an idealised Old England, exploring nostalgia as addiction and love dying on the vine.

This staged reading of ‘blackberries’ is supported by Arts Council England

Written by Josephine Starte

Directed by Hanna Berrigan

Dramaturgy support from Rosie Wyatt

Starring Josephine Starte, Eliza Jean Scott and Ami Okumura Jones

Praise for previous work:  ‘Very funny’ Time Out

‘Breathtaking’ A Younger Theatre

Wednesdays 12.00-2.00pm

 

Starts 21st October – until 9th December.

Fancy a crafty utopian hangout? Drop by one of our Badge Cafe lunchtimes for some free, easy, friendly creative fun, reusing old pics, books and mags to make unique badges. Hosted by Ben Walters. See more at https://badgecafe.com/and @badgecafe on Insta.

Doodle Café

Starts on Tuesday 3rd November and runs every Tuesday until 1st December!

1pm-3pm

Come and disrupt your every day with an imaginative one of a kind Doodle story workshop.

Come and disrupt your every day with an imaginative one of a kind Doodle story workshop. It’s a mixed media technique where we apply different colour patches, outline their shape, and fill them in, combining doodling, drawing and words. This immersive art expression is story telling at its core uniting images and words in a unique way. The result? Come and see!

Materials? Bring anything that you would like to use, or be inspired by what’s in the room on the day!

Refreshments? Teas, coffees and some snacks will be provided.

The vibe? Between records playing, soft lighting, a soft breeze and beautiful art, you will be in the perfect spot for creativity, inspiration and relaxation!

 

 

This event is part of a soft launch of the Soho Poly Creative Health events, disrupting your everyday with art for your wellbeing and the community’s.

 

Wednesdays 12.00-2.00pm

 

Starts 21st October – until 9th December.

Fancy a crafty utopian hangout? Drop by one of our Badge Cafe lunchtimes for some free, easy, friendly creative fun, reusing old pics, books and mags to make unique badges. Hosted by Ben Walters. See more at https://badgecafe.com/and @badgecafe on Insta.

Wednesdays 12.00-2.00pm

 

Starts 21st October – until 9th December.

Fancy a crafty utopian hangout? Drop by one of our Badge Cafe lunchtimes for some free, easy, friendly creative fun, reusing old pics, books and mags to make unique badges. Hosted by Ben Walters. See more at https://badgecafe.com/and @badgecafe on Insta.

13.00-14.00

In 2024 we had a Polyphonic Record Bar where we played a series of records that tied into our artistic philosophies. This year we are having another record bar, but this time we are playing further on our ghost gig idea. For ghost gigs we source the recording of an artists’ performance at one of our venues, then replay this, on the day it took place, and in the space where it originally took place. Whilst we have sourced many superb recordings such as New Order, Shelagh McDonald and Fleetwood Mac and staged these as ghost gigs, for many of the artists that have appeared we do not, as yet, have a recording of their performance.

So in the absence of a live recording, to mark the performance we play instead a key album recorded by the artist,  as far as possible on the day the artist originally performed in one of our venues. However, rather than doing this in the space the performance took place, these playbacks will instead  take place in our Go To space and, of course, at lunchtime to disrupt your day with culture. These events are introduced by one of the Artistic Directors or a special guest.

The Stone Roses played our Students Union  on 12 November 1988. No recording of this exists. Their eponymous album is played to commemorate. Guy Osborn, who attended this event, will introduce the playback.

PAINT WITH DARREN

A series of art classes for everyone

 

3.00-5.00ish on Thursdays from 12th November to 9th December

Darren Hayman, formerly lead singer and guitarist with the band Hefner and prolific solo artist, also paints and draws. We are delighted to welcome Darren to the Soho Poly to deliver a painting workshop for people of all artistic abilities. Darren’s approach to art is inclusive and in keeping with the friendly approach of the Soho Poly to Badge Cafes and more, tea and biscuits will be provided in a welcoming space. Attendees will be able to take away their painting if they wish

 

FROM DARREN SITE

About Darrren Darren Hayman is a thoughtful, concise and detailed songwriter. He eschews the big, the bright and the loud for the small, twisted and lost. For 15 years, and over 14 albums, Hayman has taken a singular and erratic route through England’s tired and heartbroken underbelly.  More about Darren here