Don your masks, paint your smiles, and wander our fair our Kingdom. Come!
That said we are beyond delighted to announce that we shall be joined on the Main Stage by none other than the opulent, astonishing marvellous Masters of March – Perhaps Contraption.
Then descend the stairs, cross the Court Yard…Tucked away through the double doors you shall find the Tavern bursting with the most tantalising musical wonderment. Therein discover Gertie & Her Gaiety – with all the roar and razzmatazz of the Twenties and Thirties.
And finally, prepare to be Kursed. But in like, a proper good way as Hot Cakes brings us Kurse – a purveyor of slick UK bass and breakbeat.
Rumpus grabs you by the hand and leads you into an April Fools like no other: all of the overwhelming spectacle of 7 rooms crammed full ofcircus, live bands, DJs, art and performances that you’ve grown to love from Europe’s top indoor festival experience – but this time with some added surprises!
Whilst weaving this wayward walk enjoy the delights brought to you by the Cool Beans Collective and Happy Slap Boutique. We’ve got Balkan Roast taking over a room, Tell Tale Tusk making magic on the Main Stage and the Mariachis you can’t Gringo without!
And, as part of the London Games Festival Fringe, SeaSylph Games will be transforming the whole venue into a world of adventures, quests, missions and intrigue: all Creatures will be transmogrified into a Character – perhaps a Unicorn Hunter, a Failed Ex-Factor Star or a Zombie Entrepreneur, amongst a host of others – and be let loose to quest through multiple storylines! Will you fid the Queen Unicorn and pull out her tail? Will you find the Golden Orb of Doom? Will you win the Rumpus ex-Factor show?
As if that weren’t enough, in honour of April Fools we’re opening up a secret mystery room for a very special comedy show from Ellis & Rose featuring Phil Kay and 0ther top stand up comedians – but in order to get, you’re going to have to get past that pesky bouncer…
Line up
❤️ Room 1 – Main Room
Paradise Moist – Who is he? Who is he? Moisten to this heavenly medley of music!
Mariachi El Pinche Gringo – A 9-piece pop cover band adding some Mexican flare and much more than one sombrero to the mix. Prepare to have expectations astounded and rediscover the very meaning of joy!
Tell Tale Tusk – This raggle taggle sextet weave fairy tale folk into killer klezmer riffs. Unusual, theatrical, and downright daft get ready for some full throttle fun!
Oli Nice – The DJ that is so succulent, sweet, lovely & nice we just had to have him back!
The last survivors of humanity are huddling, sheltered in the ruins of a bombed-out church. They festoon the shredded scraps of their clothes with whatever they can scavenge, relics of a shattered civilisation. Seizing upon a rusted ring-binder pulled from the wreckage, they establish a strange cult to placate the angered gods and return to the Before time.
But what is this sacred text? This guiding memory passed down the ages? This solitary book, this final gift from our old, dying world to a brave new one?
From among the bedraggled masses, a decrepit holy man steps forth. Throwing open the first laminated page, he solemnly recites what can only be the word of God: “Health… and… Safe…ty… Guide… linesâ€
Mystery room – ELLIS & ROSe’S CRAP COMEDY CLUB
The best comedy to ever be performed in a toilet! It’ll send you round the (U)bend. Will you be able to blag your way past the bouncer?
Featuring:
Phil Kay– The godfather of modern surrealist comedy
Perrier Award Winner
Bob Slayer – The foremost instigator of surly, drunken hi-jinks
Malcolm Hardee Award Winners & London Cabaret Award Nominees
💚 Room 3 – Cool Beans Collective
Off the rails tune selection from these rambunctious reprobates hunting down and delivering dance floor fillers and swung out bombs for set after infectiously pumping set!
Cool Beans DJs – The high energy party DJs assured to get you dancing!
Millie Manders – Unignorable cross genre punk with more than a side serving of sassy social consciousness.
King Porter Stomp – Ska, funk, dub & afrobeat uniquely unified with cleverly crafted conscious rhymes to tug at your heart strings and win over your dancing feet!
China Shop Bull – Ska rave drum & bass blasting mayhem in yer face!
🩵 Room 4 – BALKAN ROAST PRESENTS: MANOUCHE MENAGERIE – LE HOT CLUB DE RUMPUS
Transport yourself to a smoke filled Parisian basement, where smoking hot jazz meets sultry swing, and gypsy guitars and pencil moustaches are the name of the game that you’ll play.
A hit squad of artists so fresh and talented that their pencils are legally classed as weapons.
💜 Room 5 – Courtyard
The Alchemist and his wizard posse return to transform the Courtyard with their chilled out beats and bass.
💙 Room 6 – The Wonderland Cafe
There is talk of a secret underground resistance. The password is “cake pleaseâ€. Will you jin the fight to overthrown the People’s Party of Rumpus?
🩷 Room 7 – Cinerave
VJ Harper – VJ Harper bringing about an ascension like no other with her particular concoction of visual, musical madness!
A non-stop, tip-top, over-the-top animalistic, carnivalistic party extravaganza for Under 11’s and their adults!
After 6 years of unsurpassed joymongering, London’s most celebrated party crew join Mini VAULT to bring their trademark dancefloor shenanigans to families with this fantastically-funfilled event!
Get creative and transform yourselves into a sea creature, as this event is all about the dressing up! Prepare yourselves for a musical procession and a live performance by the completely extraordinary and twisted brass band Perhaps Contraption; take a ringside seat for incredible circus acts and hula-hooping with Marawa’s Majorettes and join the internationally celebrated Rumpus Kazoo Orchestra!
Mini Rumpus is an immersive family event with live bands and dazzling performances. Dance all day, see a show and get involved with crazy craft activities!
Let your marine imagination run wild and dress up in your most fabulously fishy fancy dress to experience the sparkliest party in town!
Roll up! Roll up! Sideshow savants, snake oil sellers, doom yellers, mysterious & mischievous magic carpet vendors!
Let us join in carny convivial cohort, be probed by aliens of salvation, drink ALL the Cool Aid! We’re beaming up to abduct your senses and massacre the melancholy as Rumpus returns with its February instalment of tip-top, non-stop, animalistic amusement.
The return to Rumpus brings us back to the Islington Metalworks with 7 rooms bursting to the brim with live bands, DJs playing everything from turbo gypsy to Drum’n’Bass, art exhibitions, immersive theatre and walkabout performers, a very special jazz room, and its own kazoo orchestra!
We’ve got bands coming from around Europe to whisk you into a frenzy with the likes of Batiar Gang, Gypsies of Bohemia and Tantz coming to play up a storm! The Wonderland crew is back transforming the second room into a lustrous, magical den, and London Leisure Pirates will be joining us once again bombarding creatures big and small with their particularly marvellous machinations.
Shamans soar & snake charmers allure so don your ritual robes, wink that third eye and bounce away the barbarous night!
Line up
❤️ Room 1 – Main Room
Paradise Moist – It wouldn’t be a mysterious marvel without this DJ, just who is the Whiz behind that damp, velvet curtain?
Crinkle Cuts – Electrifying eccentricity giving you a good blasting of tantric funk, ska, latin waves and all the good vibes.
Batiar Gang – Flying in from Ukraine these radical punk-folk bring the finest of Balkan Klezmer to transcend the skies, tear open those musical taste buds and manoeuvre the masses!
Offbeat Terrorist – Mazeltov, mis amigos! Prepare yourselves for a total global mash-up! …We’re looking forward to the Kumbian Bass!
Oli Nice – This Rumpus favourite is oh so Nice! It’s all in the name.
💛 Room 2 – Hosted By wonderland
Wonderland is back to take over the second room giving toadstool nibblers, inquisitive caterpillars and even Alice a run for her other worldly witching. The party is mad…and all for a good cause!
Imo Loves Dick – Imo LOVES Dick are Wonderland’s Queen of Hearts and Dormouse, tickling you with all manner of old skool Hip Hop, RnB, bass music and funk. Get ready to bump, bump, bump….
Duzmoore – Smooshing up breaks, funkyness and 90s classics
King Mixalot – Big bassy beats and mixed-up mashups from Wonderland’s King Of Hearts
Miss White Rabbit – The White Rabbit bringing you bashment and dancehall rhythms to make you get down and dirty!
J. Ravens – A solid mix of electro, house, future and classic dance vibes. Banging tunes for a banging dancefloor!
Fat Sam – Coming at us with a mix of electro swing, glitchyness and silly classics – a grand slam from Fat Sam!
Sl*tDrop – Wonderland’s Newbie Sl*tDrop treating you to the best old skool and UK Garage. Get ready for a lot of twosteppin’ and twerkin!
W.E.D.G.E – Wildly entertaining, dangerous, ginger and exciting.
SlyFox – House. House. Tech House. Grandmaster Flash. House. Sly Fox will be serving up some bangin’ house.
💚 Room 3
Gypsies of Bohemia – These jazz manouche non-purists will bring you all your modern pop favourites…just like you never heard them before.
Tantz – These six hotshots bring all the filthy klezmer beats to get you stomping ‘til it nearly does you in.
Jamie Moon – In honour of the greatest cult there has ever been the legendary Jamie Moon brings you a set by the artist formerly & forever known as Prince.
This ragged, rugged band of miscreants descend upon the shores of Rumpus once again, this time plundering the fourth room with all sorts of marvellous mayhem.
More details to dock in the not so distant future.
💜 Room 5 – Courtyard
The Alchemist and his delectable disciples descend upon Rumpus, laying down the most magical of melodies to see you soaring through the night accompanied by the most fearsome of freakshows.
💙 Room 6 – The Wonderland Cafe
Tea, cake, coffee and serenity. Pause the whirlwind of the dance-floor for musical moments of patience and perfect peace with these wondrous charitable Creatures
🩷 Room 7 – Cinerave
VJ Harper – Vibrant visuals to feast your eyes while the beats move your feets to feats of great dancing
