By James Hadley in London

The autumn leaves on London's pavements tell me the season of outdoors festivals is now over. So it's more than a month since I went to Notting Hill Carnival, but perhaps it will seem more timely for those of you heading back into warmer weather anyway.By James Hadley in London

The autumn leaves on London's pavements tell me the season of outdoors festivals is now over. So it's more than a month since I went to Notting Hill Carnival, but perhaps it will seem more timely for those of you heading back into warmer weather anyway.The Carnival is London's biggest public event - ie it's beyond human comprehension how many people attend. The otherwise quite fashionable and somewhat exclusive neighbourhood of Notting Hill is rid of traffic and taken over by throngs of Londoners filling all the streets throughout both the Saturday and Sunday of the last weekend of August. It's an institution, having been going since 1964, and grew out of the Trinidad Festival. It's Caribbean heart still exists, but it's expanded into a genuinely multicultural event.

Most of the many makeshift food stalls set up in the streets sell Caribbean treats like jerk chicken, goat curry, coconuts and barbequed corn cobs. There are various music stages from which DJs play different kinds of sound - imbuing the surrounding streets with distinctive atmospheres.

As my friends and I jostled our way through the tube-train-in-rush-hour packed streets, it was like passing from a drum'n'bass nightclub to a bar blaring gangsta rap, and then on to a 'sixties retro dive - all in otherwise quite well-to-do streets. It's the one day of the year when you see people publicly smoking illegal substances en mass just a few paces from packs of police. And I mean packs. I've never seen so many police - there was literally a group of London 'bobbies' on every street corner.

But what does this have to do with theatre? The backbone of the Carnival is the parade. The largest and most elaborate piece of processional theatre I have ever come across. It's filled with costumes that wouldn't look out of place at the World of Wearable Arts Awards, and goes for literally hours such is the extent of the participants.

Different sections of the parade have different cultural identities, and with the recent Beijing Olympics, this year's parade began with the Chinese contingent, complete with Chinese acrobats and several variations on the traditional Chinese dragon. Many of these were rod puppets, twice the height of a person, with brightly coloured protuberances in all directions. In the parade in general there is an impressive level of innovation on display in costumes - some stretching the limits of just how large a structure one person can support.

For example, some have costumes built around something like a zimmerframe on wheels that the wearer trundles along, while wearing a backpack-like harness which supports the main body and head of the puppet character above them. Because it's all about spectacle, most costumes are similar to peacocks' fanned-out tails - spread out so that a single person's costume takes up the whole street. One person was placed inside a huge golden buddha, spinning round and round as he benignly smiled. Another was decked out like a massive chandelier, all tinsel and glitter. But the classic costume - and the iconic image of the Notting Hill Carnival - is the barely there spangled bikini, sparkly high heels and towering feather-plumed headdress. It's like a Caribbean variation on the Las Vegas showgirl - and these women are queens of all they survey as they sashay with appropriate pride down the streets. Some parts of the parade feature veritable armies of such figures in rank and file.

There are also elaborate floats - often two storeys high. Most impressive this year was a mermaid perched on top of a waterfall, surrounded by attendants. Everything is realised in a riot of colour. Other floats are laden with tin drum bands. The soundtrack to the parade is mostly provided by large troupes of drummers - though of the South American variety rather than anything military or Scottish. It's a very primal sound and sets the hedonistic atmosphere of the event.

The carnival is also referred to as a Mas (short for masquerade) - and while very few masks are worn, there is a definite sense of people being able to step outside of their usual social roles for the day. Faces that are usually hardened into urban facade masks are mobile with expressions. It should operate as a sort of social catharsis, but sadly the event often seems to degenerate into crime and rioting towards the end of the Sunday. Nevertheless, as soon as the parade is over, I'm told that work quickly begins on the costumes and floats that will be designed for the following year's parade. It reminded me of the secular rituals that Welfare State International Theatre company used to stage; sometimes involving communities of industrialised areas in huge celebratory parades with massive puppets. There are very few people who would consider themselves performers in the Notting Hill Carnival parade, but this is performance at its most accessible, and a theatrical spectacle that's more representative of contemporary London than anything you'll see in the West End venues.

Read previous Sets and the City blogs

Feel free to get in touch with any questions (or if you're planning a London visit and want some theatre recommendations) to jamesstuarthadley@gmail.com

Use the comment box below

13/10/08