March of the Daschund: children’s craft event. 3pm, McDonald Road Library, 2-4 McDonald Road. Free: no booking required. Part of From Poland With Love: Scottish-Polish Cultural Week.
Haunted Tales of Old Edinburgh: Royal Mile storyteller Calum Lykan captures some gruesome and spooky moments from Auld Reekie past and present. 2-3pm, Museum of Edinburgh, Canongate. Free: part of Once Upon A Place: Scottish International Storytelling Festival 2014.
You CAN DO it! Free event launching a new project in Edinburgh, CAN DO. CAN DO delivers bespoke volunteering opportunities to young disabled people aged 16-35 – come along and find out what is on offer. All welcome: refreshments and entertainment provided. 1pm, St John’s Church, Princes Street. For more information contact kate.mamboininga@leonardcheshire.org.
ECA: Live: visit Edinburgh College of Art whilst its Art, Design and Landscape Architecture students are at work in their studios – see the College’s dynamic creative environment on a normal working day. A full programme of talks and tours will run from 10.30am to 2pm, covering everything from animation to jewellery, graphic design to textiles. These are expected to be busy, and if necessary priority will be given to prospective students. 10am-3pm, Edinburgh College of Art, Lauriston Place. Booking is essential and can be made via eventbrite. Enquiries about group bookings should be directed to the ECA Student Support Officers at eca-sso@ed.ac.uk.
It’s Our Street! Big Draw All Day Art Event: come to the library and be part of creating a Big Draw collaborative art work celebrating your city. Take inspiration from the library’s 44 feet long scroll painted by the Japanese artist Furuyama Moromasa, which presents an extended street scene in Tokyo around 1700, to create a new street scene inspired by the local environment in Edinburgh. Work together in a group, using recycled materials from magazines and drawing with scissors by cutting out shapes and images to make a street scene glued on to an extended roll of paper. Suitable for all ages. 11am-4.30pm (drop-in session), George Washington Browne Room, Central Library, George IV Bridge. Free, no ticket required, but numbers will be limited to no more than 50 at any one time.
Spooky Halloween Walk: join the Rangers on an evening walk looking for ghosts and ghouls. Wrap up warmly and bring a torch. Suitable for families. 6.30-7.30pm, Sutherland Building/Visitor Centre, Beecraigs Country Park, near Linlithgow, EH49 6PL. Prior booking essential: tickets cost £3.43/£2.36 and can be booked by calling Beecraigs on 01506 844516 between 10am and 4pm or emailing mail@beecraigs.com.
Serenity Cafe Club Nights: Little Ruby. Serenity is run by people in recovery for people in recovery: Club Nights are drink and drugs-free and family-friendly. 7pm till late, Serenity Cafe, 8 Jackson’s Entry, off Royal Mile or Holyrood Road. All welcome: £6 waged, £4 unwaged.
Margaret’s Wardrobe: curatorial assistant and researcher Dr Chris Lee tells the lively personal story of one ‘ordinary’ woman, Margaret and her amazing high-end fashion collection. From the 1970s onwards Margaret bought herself a subscription to Vogue and accumulated a wardrobe of high-end High Street fashions from a Glasgow department store. By 2008 Margaret had been many things: nurse, air hostess, wife and mother, as well as a considerable shopper, but she had also begun to forget things and one day after shopping in Paisley she couldn’t remember how to get home. Dr Lee tells Margaret’s story through the fashions of each decade and as a moving case study of those living with dementia. There will be an opportunity to enjoy NMS’s Jean Muir handling collection. 2-3.30pm, National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street. Free tickets are available from the Museum’s reception or online. Part of Luminate: Scotland’s Creative Ageing Festival.
Gore By The Shore: a night of tricks and treats at ‘the freakiest party in town’: Halloween punch, buffet, best costume competition, live DJ. 10pm-2am, The Granary, 32 The Shore, Leith. Call in to get your wristband.
Recitals for Wrigglers – Halloween Special: a themed interactive classical music experience for under-3s! 10.30-11.30am, Drumbrae Library Hub, 81 Drumbrae Drive.
Blackwell’s Edinburgh invites you to come and meet Julia Donaldson, one of the nation’s best loved children’s authors (The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom, The Scarecrow’s Wedding). Julia will be signing copies of her latest book The Further Adventures of the Owl and the Pussycat, and is happy to sign one of her books brought from home in addition to anything you purchase in the store. 2-4pm, Blackwell’s, South Bridge. Note: this is a signing, no tickets are required.
Halloween Party: come and join in the fun – make your own witches’ brew, masks and lanterns. For under-12s. 2.30-3.30pm, Gilmerton Library, 13 Newtoft Street.
Lunchtime Concert: Emma Lloyd (violin) and Karin Schistek (piano) play Beethoven Sonata for Piano and Violin in C minor Op 30/2 and Debussy Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Minor L.140. 1.10pm, Reid Concert Hall, University of Edinburgh, Bristo Square. Free.
Halloween Lanterns: for ages 4+. 2.30-3.30pm, Stockbridge Library, Hamilton Place.
Africa in Motion: Beti and Amare. Celebrate Halloween African style with this unique, strangely engaging and genre-blurring film, a mixture of sci-fi, fantasy and historical romance. Set in a 1936 Ethiopia disrupted by World War One, it follows the story of a young Ethiopian girl fleeing Mussolini’s troops. ‘Stunning use of landscape and powerful imagery (create) an intensely visual experience.’ For ages 15+. 7-8.30pm, Summerhall, 1 Summerhall. Tickets cost £5 and can be booked via Summerhall’s website. See The Edinburgh Reporter’s article about the Africa in Motion Festival here.
Food Co-Op: buy cheap, quality food from Green City. Green City Wholefoods Workers’ Collective aims to create a non-exploitative workplace which takes into consideration the interests of the workers, the community and the environment as a whole. 3-6pm, Upstairs, Forest Cafe, Lauriston Place.
Superheroes and Villains: Joseph Pearce’s Halloween Party. Dress up as your favourite villain or superhero ‘for one night villains and superheroes find peace – and party.’ From 6pm, Joseph Pearce’s Bar, 23 Elm Row.
Birds of Paradise Theatre: Crazy Jane. Jane Avril, dancer at the Moulin Rouge, cordially invites you to the Saltpetriere Asylum to join her, Professor Charcot and his junior staff Drs Freud, Tourette, Jung and Alzheimer in the waltz of modern psychiatry commonly known as The Fools Dance. The whole range of the Human Zoo will be present as Jane recounts her story and that of her good friend Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Birds in Paradise Theatre present a work-in-progress viewing of their new show Crazy Jane by Nicola McCartney with choreography by Janice Parker and music by Hector Bizerk. Suitable for ages 14+. 4pm or 4.45pm or 5.30pm (each show lasts 25 mins), Summerhall, 1 Summerhall. Free tickets can be booked via Summerhall’s website.
Africa in Motion: Eric Kabera Masterclass. A talented Rwandan filmmaker and pioneer of the country’s film industry, Eric Kabera founded the Rwandan Cinema Centre and the film production company Link Media Productions, which produced the first feature-length film on the Rwandan genocide, 100 Days. Eric has made a number of documentary films to high acclaim; his directorial debut Keepers of Memory, an unforgettable documentary released ten years after the genocide, is screening today at 8pm; he also co-produced the critically acclaimed film Africa United. His latest documentary Intore will be released in early 2015. In this masterclass Eric will show clips from his films and talk about his filmmaking practice. 3-5.30pm, Filmhouse, Lothian Road. Free entry. Eric Kabera’s visit has been generously supported by the University of Stirling.
