Topgolf Chigwell

Swing into the spooky season in style as Topgolf Chigwell drapes itself in terror. Visitors will encounter many scary goings on taking place throughout half term, from pumpkin golf balls, to frightening beverages, and free games for those in fancy dress.

On Saturday, October 29 from 2pm-6pm, children can have their faces painted to resemble scary little monsters, while adults can get ready for a fancy dressed themed evening and spooky-flavoured cocktails.

Topgolf currently has three UK venues – Chigwell, Watford and Surrey.

For more information on Topgolf, visit: topgolf.com/uk/chigwell

Spooky Secret Island at Royal Gunpowder Mills

Dare you encounter Dr Gore and his Half Term Horrors? Daily in need of fresh volunteers, Dr Gore stirs up gruesome experiments with his Lab Rats, hoping to create and expand an evil empire. Science or Wizardry? Well, you decide. Join in throughout the day for Family Fun activities, gruesomely slimy goings-on, nightmare ventures and help the Doctor create colourful potions for secret purposes. Experience what it’s like to be a wizard or witch make yourself a hat or broomstick to complete the spell.

Other nightmarish activities include mysterious matters in the Darkened Museum, and if you try Spooky Night Vision, will you end up receiving a trick or treat?

Until Sunday, October 30, from 10am-5pm (last ticket 3pm).

The site is wheelchair and buggy friendly with free parking.

Details: royalgunpowdermills.com

Mischief and Mayhem

Visit the farms this October half term for a spooky treat! There’s plenty of things to do during this special Halloween event, lots of fun for all the family to enjoy. Get into character with a freaky face paint of your favourite spooky character or animal, take a walk on our Trick or Treat trail, or get creative at a pumpkin carving and decorating sessions. If you’re really look for a fright, why not visit the Haunted House… if you dare!

Lee Valley Farms, until Sunday, October 30. Details: 01992 892781 lvfarms.co.uk

Halloween Half Term at the RAF Museum London

Chocks away for a devilish programme of hair-raising and high flying events that will keep any young Frankenstein spellbound.The museum is hosting a series of free story-telling workshops based on true stories from its world-beating collection. Discover how the bravery of a pigeon saved a squadron of soldiers trapped behind enemy lines or how the beautiful and resourceful Princess Noor Inayat Khan saved hundreds of lives. Sessions run from 1pm – 1.30 pm, 2pm-2.30pm and 3pm-3.30pm in the First World War in the Air Gallery. The Witches was inspired by the magical children’s book written by renowned author Roald Dahl, a former RAF Pilot. ‘The Witches’ tells the story of Luke, a recently orphaned young boy, who must stop the Grand High Witch transforming all of Britain’s children into mice – despite being turned into one himself! Screening on October 28 at 2pm.

The Royal Air Force Museum London is open daily from 10am. Details: 020 8358 4964, rafmuseum.org/whatson

Have a beastly Halloween at Palace Gardens

Delve into the dank world of mini beasts and creepy crawlies with Blue Peter animal expert Scott Adams. Zookeeper Scott, who has appeared on CBBC and CBeebies, will be bringing a fantastic array of slippery, slimy and scaly creatures from around the world for youngsters to see and learn more about. Stick around for some spine tingling bushtucker trials in “I’m a Shopper Get Me Out of Here” where you can brave it out in the Tarantula booth.

Bread and Butter Theatre will be performing three comedy zombie shows at 11am, 12.30pm and 2pm. The undead duo will provide plenty of ghoulish comedy, fun, games and terrifying Halloween tunes throughout the day. At the end of each show there will be a fancy dress competition for children. Youngsters can create something scary for Halloween at the free make and take workshop located near Costa. There will be lots to choose from including wolf and skull masks, three dimensional witches, spooky veils, haunted houses, bats or witches’ wands.

Thursday, October 28, 11am-3pm. Details: palaceshopping.co.uk

Pumpkin carving and petrified pizza at Wyevale

Wyevale Garden Centres in Hillingdon and Enfield are hosting pumpkin carving events for children aged 3-8 on October 28 from 10am–12pm and on October 29-30 join the ghoulish gang in fancy dress for the Fangtastic Parties 'monster mash' featuring a host of great activities, such making a crushed bug flapjack, chocolate dipped apples and a wicked witch's hat, monstrous musical statues and petrifying pizza.

Details: wyevalegardencentres.co.uk

Ghostly Ghouls: Create and Play

Leave the kids with us for two jam-packed hours of creative fun involving drama games, storytelling and craft activities. Each session is themed around a popular children’s story, and includes a ‘make to take home’.

Queen’s Theatre, Billet Lane, Hornchurch RM11 1QT, Thursday, October 27, 10am. Details: 01708 443333, queens-theatre.co.uk

Halloween Happenings

A whole day crammed full of fun drama games and spooky craft activities.

Queen’s Theatre, Billet Lane, Hornchurch RM11 1QT, Friday, October 28, 10am to 4pm. Details: 01708 443333, queens-theatre.co.uk

Agatha Christie’s Partners in Crime

Home from the War, flat-broke and unemployed, our twenty-something heroes embark on a daring business scheme: ‘The Young adventurers Limited’… willing to go anywhere, willing to do anything. But their first assignment plunges them into more danger than they ever imagined and they quickly find themselves sucked into a perilous world of political intrigue, criminal conspiracy, murder and mayhem. This inventive new adaptation is shot through with fast-paced action, comedy, live music and a dash of romance.

Queen’s Theatre, Billet Lane, Hornchurch RM11 1QT, Friday, October 28, to Saturday, November 19, various times. Details: 01708 443333, queens-theatre.co.uk

The First Scarecrow

Led by a professional storyteller, these brilliant interactive sessions bring popular stories to life, encouraging imagination and creativity through structured play, while exploring the themes and characters in each story.

Queen’s Theatre, Billet Lane, Hornchurch RM11 1QT, Saturday, October 29, 10am. Details: 01708 443333, queens-theatre.co.uk

Delicious Decay

Delicious Decay will engage the public with the sometimes horrifying yet fascinating topic of bodily decomposition via very palatable means, and will be held during the run-up to Halloween. The event is inspired in part by the unusual chemical indole, which is present in coffee and chocolate as well as the decomposing deceased. Sherbet ‘cremains’, skeleton shortbread and the scent of death all feature The event includes talks on body farms and how funerary cannibalism relates to cakes, while themed cocktails will also be available. Throughout the Saturday event there will be goods to purchase and decomposition ‘experiences’ included in the ticket, such as digging through edible soil to excavate consumable body parts made by bakers/food artists and smelling the chemicals currently used to train cadaver dogs. There will also be mini lectures to educate on what each of the unusual consumables represents and how they relate to decomposition.

Barts Pathology Museum, Robin Brook Centre, West Smithfield, EC1A 7BE, Friday, October 28, 6.30pm. Details: 020 7882 5555

The Signal-Man and Other Horrifying Tales

Celebrate Halloween weekend with a dramatic reading of three of Charles Dickens's most infamous ghost stories. Dominic Gerrard returns to the Dickens Museum to perform The Signal-man, The Ghost in the Bride's Chamber and Captain Murderer. As a boy, Dickens was terrified by the violent horror of Captain Murderer - a gruesome bedtime story, told by his nurse, who never spared him "one word of it". His interest in the supernatural fired from a young age, Dickens would go on to write some of the world's best loved ghost stories. In The Signal-Man a strange figure lurks in the mouth of an isolated tunnel, appearing each time before a tragedy on the line. Then in The Ghost in the Bride's Chamber a young traveller arrives at an inn, late one night, and learns the horrifying truth of what lurks there...

Charles Dickens Museum, 48 Doughty Street, WC1N 2LX, Saturday, October 29, 7pm. Details: 020 7405 2127 dickensmuseum.com

Murder Ballad

Don't miss Murder Ballad, the thrilling new musical of love, obsession and murderous desire as it heads to the Arts Theatre this October. Sara, Tom and Michael are three New Yorkers caught in a secret love triangle that could tear their lives apart. Life has not dealt any of them the cards they wanted, and Sara is stuck in the middle, torn between her downtown past and her uptown future. Is the one that got away really worth risking everything for? But in the true tradition of all great murder ballads, when songs of love-gone-wrong are sung, blood must be spilled. The question is… by whom? Fresh from making a critically acclaimed killing off-Broadway, Murder Ballad is a razor-sharp tale of modern relationships, abandoned dreams and treachery in the big city. Written by the award-winning Julia Jordan with music and lyrics by singer-songwriter Juliana Nash, this is a boldly brilliant and explosive new musical that's set to be London's hottest new sensation.

Arts Theatre, Great Newport Street, WC2H 7JB, Friday, September 30, to Saturday, December 3, various times. Details: artstheatrewestend.co.uk

Days of the Dead – A Theatrical Mind-Reading Performance

Halloween, Samhain, Dia de los Muertos – there are few cultures that have not, at one time or another, celebrated, honoured and propitiated their dead at certain moments in the year. Outside of any specific date, many of these cultures have also engaged in regular communion with the departed, alluding to a somewhat more nuanced perspective on the nature of life and death. Witches, shamans, spiritualists, occultists, mambo priestesses – the officiants of these communions went (and still go) by a variety of titles and served a wide and disparate number of functions. At times the pedigree and credibility of these practitioners has been questioned, and their intentions subject to considerable doubt. Tonight a conjuror will examine some of the claims made by those that believe and the rebuttals presented by those that don’t. Your attendance would be most welcome.

The Old Operating Theatre Museum, 9A Saint Thomas Street, SE1 9RY, Saturday, October 29, 7pm. Details: thegarret.org.uk, 020 7188 2679

Vampires

Timed for Halloween, our five-week course is devoted to vampire narratives of the last 200 years. Seductive yet repellent, ancient yet new, the vampire is a creature of contradictions – hero, villain and victim all in one. An accomplished crosser of thresholds, the vampire has travelled from the page to the stage, and to screens both big and small. In this courses we’ll consider the vampire’s victims – those who are ‘innocent’, those who are negligent, and those who are made complicit by their confused and confusing desires. We’ll also discuss the often strangely unattractive characters who are the vampire’s would-be destroyers, the hinterlands they inhabit and the instruction manuals they take with them. And, of course, we’ll be looking at vampires themselves, following their transformations through time and across a variety of genres and media.

The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB, Thursday, October 27, 6pm. Details: 01937 546546, bl.uk

Haunted at the Medieval Banquet

This Halloween, as twilight descends across the Olde City, in the long-reaching shadows of the Tower of London now turned to darkness, sits the Medieval Banquet…

Ivory House, St Katherine Docks, E1W 1BP, Wednesday, October 26, to Sunday, October 30, 5.15pm and 7.15pm. Details: medievalbanquet.com

Dinner at the Twits

Les Enfants Terribles theatre company and ebp are for the first time creating one of Roald Dahl’s titles specifically for adults, in collaboration with delicious gastronomy from Bompas & Parr and the creative wranglers at Creature of London. Join Mr & Mrs Twit in their windowless house and ghastly garden for an evening you will never forget. Your ticket includes the chance to first fish the glass eye from your prickly cocktail apertif, hunt for concealed canapes and gruesome hors d’oeuvres, and then brave a baroque bird pie banquet and potentially perilous pudding, served with ½ bottle of wine or non-alcoholic drinks, all whilst experiencing 90 minutes of entertainment from the worst hosts ever.

The Vaults, Leake Street, SE1 7NN, Sunday, September 4, to Sunday, October 30. Details: twitsdinner.com