Things to do today in Bristol: Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Must-read stuff:

– Two more Bristol Labour councillors have been suspended amid claims that Momentum is “taking over” Labour in the city
– One of Bristol’s most successful and oversubscribed schools has been told it can open a new secondary school.
– Relive the moment when a hot air balloon made an unscheduled landing in the middle of a busy Redland street.

Things to do today:

ART

Art of the Improvisers, Centrespace
Eight days of abstract painting, improvised music and fortune-telling from artists Dan Hunt, Vic Coombes, Naomi Greeves, Barnabas Y and Don Mandarin.

Adela Breton: Ancient Mexico in Colour, Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
Adela Breton (1849-1923)’s copies of the wall paintings in temples and buildings in the Mexican ruins of Chichén Itzá, Teotihuacan and Acancéh are now the only full record of what was there in the 1900s. Here, Breton’s full-size colour copies of the wall paintings go on display for the first time since the 1940s.

Cartman and McGregor, Lime Tree Gallery
Paintings by Sam Cartman and Euan McGregor, artists of quite different background and education who have emerged as two of the great stylists of contemporary Scottish painting.

Instant Dreams, Kingfisher Cafe
Work from two Instant Film artists living in and around the south-west. Both artists work with an SX70 camera, and have both quoted its unpredictable reaction to light, heat and other elements enhance the work they create.

Mary Price, Tobacco Factory bar
Bristol-based Expressionist artist shows recent paintings inspired by “random wandering around narrow streets in cities in Spain and Portugal”.

WILD, Grant Bradley GalleryExhibition bringing together four artists with different approaches, whose work is influenced by their relationship with the natural world and the wild within it.

BOOKS

Eimear McBride, Waterstones Galleries
Eimear McBride, author of the Bailey’s Prize-winning novel A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, discusses her new novel, The Lesser Bohemians.

CLASSICAL

Annual free gala organ concert, Colston Hall
To celebrate the 60th birthday of Colston Hall’s concert organ, acclaimed organist Richard Hills will be playing a varied programme of old, new, soft, and loud pieces of music on the 5,372-pipe Harrison and Harrison instrument.

Richard Boothby – Solo Fantasies, St George’s
In 2015, twelve solo violin pieces by Telemann were discovered after being lost for 280 years. Virtuoso viol player, Richard Boothby will be performing the complete set of these rediscovered compositions. 

FILM

Encounters: Aardman 40th Anniversary Special, Watershed
As part of Aardman’s 40th birthday celebrations, co-founders David Sproxton and Peter Lord look back at the great Bristol animation studio’s illustrious history for the Encounters festival. The event is chaired by Bristol24/7 Editor, Martin Booth.

Hell or High Water, various cinemas
Starred Up director David McKenzie and Sicario writer Taylor Sheridan team up for a modern-day Texan western-cum-bank heist drama that’s been favourably compared to the Coens’ Blood Simple and No Country for Old Men.

The Infiltrator, various cinemas
Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston gets back into drugs in this true-life crime drama that re-teams him with The Lincoln Lawyer director Brad Furman and is adapted from the autobiography of US Special Customs Agent Robert Mazur.

Julieta, Showcase Cinema de Lux
After the lightweight frothy fun of I’m So Excited, Pedro Almodovar returns to familiar territory for his 20th film with the kind of female-centric melodrama that only he can pull off successfully.

FOOD & DRINK

Brozen, St Nick’s Market
It’s the first full week of business for two brothers who make ice cream in front of your eyes using liquid nitrogen and an electric whisk. Be sure to try the plum sorbet.

MUSIC

Father Murphy / Muscle and Marrow / Age Decay, Louisiana
Over the years, Father Murphy have become one of the most mysterious and enigmatic musical entities coming out of Italy. Their sound is of the Catholic sense of guilt. A downward spiral aiming at the bottom of the hollow, and then digging even deeper. The support will be Muscle and Marrow, a dark experimental band from Portland, Oregon, and Age Decay, who are a doom-flecked, blackened downer rock band from Bristol.

Guadalupe Plata / The Bonnevilles, Start The Bus
Spanish trio Guadalupe Plata are heading out on their first UK tour, bringing their feverish rock ‘n’ roll to Start The Bus. Their music is full of shoulder-shaking rhythms, shrieking melodies and riffs that race or drag depending on how blue they’re feeling at any given moment.

SPORT

Gloucestershire vs Sussex, The Brightside Ground
Teenager James Bracey will make his Championship debut for Gloucestershire in the last Championship match of the summer. The wicketkeeper-batsman, who is about to start his second year at Loughborough University, signed an Academy contract in August 2015 having come through the ranks at Winterbourne Cricket Club and represented Gloucestershire in age group cricket since the age of 11.

THEATRE

Happily… Never… After, Bristol Ferry Boats’ Matilda
Bristol’s Darkstuff Productions return with a water-bound new production in conjunction with Bristol Community Ferryboats, taking a darkly comic look at the wedding party, teasing out a story of secrets, lies and bad buffets.

Murder She Didn’t Write, Wardrobe Theatre
Bristol’s excellent Degrees of Error reprise their much-praised improv comedy murder mystery, in which audiences become the author and watch their very own Agatha Christie-inspired masterpiece unfold on stage.

The Rivals, Bristol Old Vic
Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s Georgian-Bath-set Restoration comedy is the next instalment in Bristol Old Vic’s century-by-century 250th birthday celebrations. 

Sister Act, Bristol Hippodrome
Brand new production of the Broadway and West End hit musical comedy, starring Alexandra Burke.

Things to do in Bristol today. Visit our full What’s On guide here.