South Africa festival time!

11 April 2012
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Festival: Celebrate South Africa

Whoever invented the bank holiday weekend deserves huge recognition; not least because the words 'bank holiday' seem to send the shadowy folk behind music programming into paroxysms of excitement.

Those behind the Celebrate South Africa festival are no exception and they've rounded this six-week event off with two concerts at the Royal Festival Hall and a three-day carnival as part of the Coin Street Festival.

The first concert, Freedom Too! (Sun,

7.30pm, £10 to £25, limited availability), is a sequel to the 1998 Two Dogs And Freedom concert at Sadler's Wells, and features Sir Anthony Sher, Richard E Grant, Sir Ian McKellen and, uhm, Charlie Dimmock, plus the legendary vocalist and trumpet player Hugh Masekela, the satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Tshwaragano 'In Touch' dance company. Monday stars the Soweto-born mezzo soprano Sibongile Khumalo with the Women Of Mambazo (7.30pm, £10 to £20).

Just along the river, nine South African craftsmen will be swapping their traditional domiciles for a huge tent in which the public will be able to talk to them and buy their work (tomorrow until Mon, Bernie Spain Gardens, Upper Ground, 2pm to 6pm. Tel: 020 7401

2255). On Sunday a braai (barbecue) will fill the gardens with the aromas of baked crocodile and more - with South African beer sold at South African prices - to the acoustic sounds of Uthingo and District 6.

On Monday a carnival will follow the river to the South Bank, accompanied by more acoustic music from the Kwaito Band, Moropa Drum Orchestra and Joe Mogotsi And The Manhattan Brothers. Claire Allfree

May 26-28, South Bank SE1, various venues, times and prices. Tel: 020 7960 4242. Tube: Waterloo/Embankment/Blackfriars.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in