Pumpkins, pizza and a £500 prize 🎃

Welcome back.

Halloween falls on Saturday, and for once the weather is on its side: dry all weekend and mild, so costumes can go out without a raincoat over the top.

Inside: Christmas at Chiswick House starts on Sunday (yes, already), a Friday-night singing contest at the George & Devonshire with £500 for the winner, and the pizza rematch we've been promising since September. Plus seven award nominations for the Tabard, and a big summer for the cricket club.

Here's the week.

The clocks went back on Sunday, and it's dark by five now, which makes this the week for it. Lit-up shopfronts, pumpkins on doorsteps, fireworks over the river, the High Road on a wet night. Hit reply and send your best W4-after-dark photo by Monday 9 November, and we'll run our favourites, with your name on it.

📍 Chiswick House & Gardens, Burlington Lane, W4 2RP | Sun 1 Nov to Thu 24 Dec

It isn't even November yet, but the Gardens are getting a head start. From Sunday to Christmas Eve, Chiswick House & Gardens runs its festive season: markets, a grotto, theatre inside the House and workshops for making your own decorations.

First up is the Duck Pond Festive Market this Sunday, 10am to 4pm and free to visit, with local and ethical independent traders, gifts, crafts and seasonal food. The Flower Market is on the same morning on the High Road, so it's a two-market Sunday. The Chiswick House Shop goes festive the same day too, open daily from 9.30am to 4.30pm, with wreaths made from foliage grown in the Gardens.

Worth booking now: Father Christmas's grotto opens on 28 November and runs to Christmas Eve. It's £20 per child and £5 per adult, with a story and a gift, and the Trust says early booking is strongly recommended.

Later in the season come the Urban Food Fest Christmas Market (28 and 29 November), The Lazy Flea's Christmas market (12 and 13 December), an operatic Georgian Christmas inside the House (12 and 13 December) and Quantum Theatre's A Christmas Carol (21 and 22 December). We'll come back to those nearer the time.

The Trust is an independent charity, so every ticket and purchase goes back into looking after the House and Gardens.

🔗 chiswickhouseandgardens.org.uk
ig: @chiswick_house

In September we asked where your go-to for pizza was. Napoli on the Road won comfortably, with more than half the vote, and Doctor Dough, a few doors along Devonshire Road, came second.

Yard Sale sat that one out, having barely opened on the High Road. It has had a month to bake now, so as promised, here's the rematch with all three in the running.

Settle it for us: one tap below. We'll share the results next week.

📍 Napoli on the Road, 9A Devonshire Road · Doctor Dough, 19 Devonshire Road · Yard Sale Pizza, 88 Chiswick High Road

📍 George & Devonshire, 8 Burlington Lane, W4 2QE | Fridays, 6 Nov to 18 Dec | from around 8pm

Fancy yourself as a singer? From next Friday, the pub on the Hogarth roundabout is running Star Search, a singing competition for solo artists and duos aged 15 and over.

Each Friday, a panel of two or three judges from entertainment backgrounds gives feedback after every act, then the audience votes for the night's winner. Weekly winners go through to the Grand Final on Friday 18 December, for a £500 cash prize sponsored by Fuller's.

It's free to come along, watch and vote, and acts can sign up any week, so there's no deadline to worry about. It's a family affair behind the bar, too: three generations of the same family work there.

To enter: call 0208 742 7342 or email [email protected].

📅 New: the full W4 events calendar. We've given the events calendar on our website a thorough overhaul. Everything in this edition is on there, plus plenty more between now and Christmas, each with times, prices and a booking link. Worth a bookmark.

This week

🧟 Zombie Train | Fri 30 Oct | 6.30pm to 9.30pm | London Museum of Water & Steam, Green Dragon Lane, TW8 0EN
The last night of the museum's grown-up Halloween ride, in booked 20-minute slots. £18 including entry; under-18s must be accompanied. Book

🦇 The Addams Family: Spooky Cinema | Fri 30 Oct | 2pm to 4pm | Gunnersbury Park Museum, W5 4NH
A half-term Halloween screening, rated PG, with popcorn included. £8 children, £10 adults, and children must come with an adult. Book

🎬 Halloween night at the pictures | Sat 31 Oct | 8pm
Hitchcock's The Birds is back on the big screen at Chiswick Cinema (cert 15). Or head to the Musical Museum in Brentford for The Bat, the 1926 silent mystery, with Donald MacKenzie on the Wurlitzer: bar from 7.15pm, £20 with a welcome drink, and a prize for the best-dressed. Online sales for that one close at 3pm on the day. The Birds · The Bat

💐 Chiswick Flower Market | Sun 1 Nov | 9am to 3.30pm | Old Market Place, W4 2DR
Around 35 nurseries and growers, free live music, and the first of the festive stock. Pair it with the Duck Pond Festive Market at Chiswick House. Details

🏛️ Last chance: How We Lost America | until Sun 1 Nov | 12pm to 5pm | Hogarth's House, Hogarth Lane, W4 2QN
The free exhibition closes on Sunday. Open Tuesday to Sunday, last entry 4.45pm, no need to book. Details

🎶 Who Put the Bomp? | until Sat 7 Nov | Tabard Theatre, 2 Bath Road, W4 1LW
The Tabard's doo-wop musical, just shortlisted for its ensemble (see Good news). Fri 30 Oct at 7.30pm, Sat 31 Oct at 2pm and 6pm, then Tue 3 to Thu 5 Nov at 7.30pm. £25.50, concessions £22.50, a little more in the final week. Book

Further ahead

🔥 Chiswick Rugby Community Fireworks | Sat 7 Nov | gates 5.30pm, fireworks 7.30pm | Chiswick Rugby Club, Dan Mason Drive, W4 2SH
Bonfire at 6.30pm and fireworks at 7.30pm, with part of every ticket going to Maggie's. Adults £12, children £8, family £30. Tickets are online only and entry is by booking name. It sold out last year. Book

🐟 Schubert's Trout Quintet | Sat 7 Nov | 4pm | St Michael & All Angels, Bath Road, W4 1TT
The Gustav Holst Ensemble plays Beethoven's String Trio Op. 9 No. 3, then the Trout. Free thanks to sponsorship: register for a place, with an optional donation. Reserve

🌺 Remembrance Sunday Requiem Mass | Sun 8 Nov | 9.45am | St Michael & All Angels, Bath Road
A choral Requiem Mass, then a procession to the Bedford Park War Memorial outside the Parish Hall for the Last Post, wreaths and two minutes' silence. Details

🎭 Call Me Merman | Sun 8 Nov | 3pm | Tabard Theatre, 2 Bath Road, W4 1LW
Rosemary Ashe stars, with Paul Knight as musical director. About 1 hour 50 with an interval. £24.50, concessions £21.50. Book

🛋️ Freud's Last Session | Wed 11 to Sat 28 Nov | Tabard Theatre
Finlay McLean and John Kay Steel, 80 minutes with no interval. Wednesday to Friday at 7.30pm, Saturdays at 6pm. £25.50, concessions £22.50, previews £20. Book

🖼️ Hogarth and the 18th Century Sex Trade | Thu 12 Nov | 6pm to 9pm | Hogarth's House, W4 2QN
An evening at the artist's country house: a storytelling walk through the rooms, then a talk. £12, ages 16 and over. Book

📚 An Evening with Lea Ypi | Thu 12 Nov | 7pm | Waterstones, 220-226 Chiswick High Road, W4 1PD
The author on her book Indignity, chaired by Martin Latham. £8, or £15 with the book, refreshments included. Book

The Tabard on Bath Road has seven nominations in this year's London Pub Theatres Standing Ovation Awards, announced on Saturday, spread across five of its own productions. The Railway Children is up for adaptation and for production values, and Round About Hogarth for new writing, with Miles Richardson and Terence Frisch also nominated for their two-hander. HMS Pinafore (adaptation), Dead Guilty (revival) and Who Put the Bomp? (ensemble) complete the list.

Two visiting shows are finalists too. The winners are announced on Sunday 29 November. The Tabard was London Pub Theatre of the Year in 2025, so it has form, and Who Put the Bomp? is on until 7 November if you want to judge for yourself.

Source: Tabard Theatre

Chiswick Cricket Club's 1st XI finished third this season, their third top-three finish in four years. Tom Flavell scored 949 runs, including 164 off 93 balls. Glayson Baptiste became the club's all-time leading run scorer, with more than 7,600, and 16-year-old Miles Dyson passed 1,000 runs. Fourteen players scored centuries.

Further down the club, the new women's team won four of its ten games in its first Surrey league season, and eight juniors moved up into men's cricket. The square at Chiswick House, where the club plays, has also been redeveloped, a £100,000 job.

Source: ChiswickW4

Chiswick's Sunday markets are bringing people to the High Road, and they're spending. Figures from the High Street Data Service, analysed by Hounslow Council, show footfall up 33% and spending up 17% between April and June compared with last year. That followed a 15% rise in footfall and a 25% rise in spending from January to March.

Sunday is Chiswick's third-busiest day of the week. In Hounslow's other town centres, it's the quietest. And more than half of the Flower Market's visitors come from outside W4, which is good news for the cafés on the way there. Sunday's two markets are in the listings above.

Source: The Chiswick Calendar, using High Street Data Service figures

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