Bucket List Adventures: Bermondsey and Hampstead
- Ellen Cheshire
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Up in London to stay with a friend and catch a couple of shows, I managed to bookend the weekend with some of my bucket list must-sees.
On Friday, I battled the chilly wind and rain at the tail end of Storm Goretti to reach Bermondsey and tick off London’s only dedicated LGBTQ+ cinema, The Arzner, tucked into Bermondsey Square. I was in the area for theatre later, but arrived rather buffeted and windswept at this incredibly stylish independent cinema of around 50 seats, complete with an inviting café bar and a menu of themed drinks.
The cinema is named after Dorothy Arzner, one of only two women directing in Hollywood during the silent era who successfully transitioned into sound. Arzner lived openly with her partner, dancer and choreographer Marion Morgan, making her an appropriate figurehead for the cinema. I would happily have seen anything from the eclectic programme of documentaries, arthouse, classics and indie films, but the stars aligned with the screening I caught. Peter Hujar’s Day, directed by Ira Sachs, is a quiet two-hander starring Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall. All three are artists whose work I actively seek out, and the film’s intimacy suited both the space and the moment perfectly, helped by the fact that I was the only person who had braved the weather. It was an extremely comfortable watch and the cinema itself felt thoughtful and well considered. The bar and its cocktails looked tempting too, and I suspect the place really comes into its own in the evening rather than on a wet and windy weekday afternoon.
A short walk away, the stars aligned again and I crossed off another long-held item with a visit to the Fashion + Textile Museum. There is no permanent collection here, so each visit depends entirely on the temporary exhibition. I lucked out. The show on was Costume Couture: Sixty Years of Cosprop.
Founded in 1965 by John Bright, Cosprop has created some of the most recognisable costumes in British film and television. The exhibition featured 88 costumes spanning six decades, from multiple Merchant Ivory productions and Jane Austen adaptations to Downton Abbey, Peaky Blinders and Gentleman Jack. It is the kind of exhibition that rewards lingering, not just for the spectacle but for the craftsmanship, construction and storytelling stitched into each piece. A small selection of short films and documentary extracts made by Bright and his team, added useful context, showing both original garments and the meticulous work behind newer creations.
From there I met my friend to see Into the Woods at the Bridge Theatre, which neatly bridged last year’s theatre and film project on Stephen Sondheim and this year’s turn towards the Gothic.
Saying goodbye to my friend on Sunday, I wondered what I could tick off from my bucket list on the way to the station. I settled on a detour to Keats House in Hampstead. I had visited the Keats-Shelley House in Rome, yet somehow had never been to the one barely three miles from where I grew up. Keats rented a couple of rooms from his friend John Brown in what was then half of the house, while the Brawne family lived in the other. It is now unified as a single space. This was where he wrote some of his most famous poems and fell in love with the stylish Fanny Brawne.
Photo opportunity: The chairs are arranged to match their placement in the portrait of Keats that hangs above the fireplace in this room.
Walking through the rooms, I couldn’t help picturing Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish from Jane Campion’s exquisite Bright Star, their presence like a soft overlay. Although I was disappointed to realise that their bedrooms, were not divided by a single wall as so beautifully depicted in the film. Note: Hyde House in Bedfordshire stood in for their homes in Hampstead.
Perhaps because the film highlights Brawne’s fashion sense and her talent for designing and making her own clothes and millinery, and with the Cosprop exhibition at the Fashion + Textile Museum still in mind, I found myself thinking about how the designers there use authentic materials and techniques that would have been familiar to Fanny. I was a little disappointed there wasn’t more about Fanny in her own right, rather than just as Keats’s muse. But then I reminded myself that the House opened in 1925, and at that time, as for many scholars since, the prevailing view of Fanny - filtered through John Brown - was that she was frivolous, a distraction for Keats, and not worthy of his love. The poems and letters, of course, say otherwise.
A weekend like this reminds me why my bucket list works so well for me. It makes me more attentive, more curious, more inclined to join the dots. Instead of thinking, I’ve got a few spare hours in London, I’ll just go back to a favourite haunt, it nudges me towards the new. That is how I discovered a new cinema, The Arzner, whose programme offers something genuinely outside the ordinary and which will now be firmly on my mental list of what’s on and can I get there.
It also reminds me that some of the places people travel across continents to see are, for me, waiting patiently on the doorstep. It was a lovely couple of days and a reminder that some of the most rewarding discoveries are not about going further, but about looking more closely at what is already there, and finding other things to delight and amuse.
Sidebar: Been There, Done the T Shirt (Romantic Poets Edition)
My Keats trail now stretches from Rome to Hampstead and, rather pleasingly, to a spot I drive past on the way to work. I still have the Keats T shirt from Rome as proof that I really did make the pilgrimage, but it is the statue in Chichester’s Eastgate Square that sneaks up on me most often. Keats stayed and wrote there in 1819 and now sits quietly on a bench, part of my everyday routine rather than a grand literary destination. A reminder that what I whizz past without thinking might be something someone else has travelled hundreds of miles to see.
For Sussex Romantic poet enthusiasts, there is another story unfolding nearby. Horsham, where Percy Bysshe Shelley was born, is currently fundraising for a new permanent public memorial. After the much debated Shelley Fountain was removed in 2016, the Shelley Memorial Project was formed to find a replacement that better reflects both the poet and the place. In 2024, following a public vote, sculptor Vincent Gray (who designed Chichester’s Keats bronze) was selected for the commission, with hopes of completing the work in 2027 or 2028 if fundraising is successful.
Some poets you travel across Europe for and buy the T shirt. Others you glance at whilst waiting at the traffic lights! Both count and both remind us that literary history is often closer than we think.
Bucket List Item Completed: The Arzner and Fashion + Textile Museum (9 January 2026) and Keats House (11 January 2026)
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