February is such a short month I can hardly believe that it’s time for our Lates with MasterCard again. But here we are and it’s looking like a really fun line-up. This month we have our first late night opening of Extinction: Not the End of the World? our latest special exhibition taking a look at the role of extinction in the evolution of life.

I had the chance to look around it just before it opened and can honestly say I was blown away. There are some fantastic specimens and fascinating interactives, including videos on conservation work, voting booths where you can have your say on big questions relating to extinction and an extinction computer game (that I probably spent far too long playing!).

Special exhibitions usually sell out at Lates but if you book early and bag yourself a ticket I’d recommend you spend a bit of time reading messages on the ‘wishing tree’, a place designed for visitors to write down their thoughts about life on Earth and leave them for others to see.

Of course this month also is the time of year that we bid a fond farewell to Wildlife Photographer of the Year at Lates. This Friday is your last chance to see the amazing photos from this year’s competition after hours so if you haven’t seen it yet and would like to, this could be your chance. It’s hard to choose a favourite image amongst such an impressive and diverse selection of photos but I think the one that stands out for me is the commended ‘Relaxation’ by Jasper Doest (below).

But Lates isn’t all about the exhibitions. This month our Crazy Artistes are back to put your speed-sketching skills to the test with real Museum specimens. Find them in the galleries and see if you can draw a dinosaur skull or a badger in just ten minutes. They’ve been squirrelling away prizes from all over the Museum so who knows, you might even win something.

We’ve also got a truly fascinating discussion event taking place in the Museum’s Restaurant. Addressing huge questions about extinction, this month’s we'll be considering whether or not we could, or indeed should, bring extinct species back from the dead.

Bringing Back the Dead has three brilliant expert speakers and you’ll be able to have your say and ask questions directly to the experts. Charlotte in our Nature Live team has been busy preparing the content and you can read more about it on the Nature Live blog here.

Once again, our increasingly popular open mic night will be returning in Central Hall. I’m getting more and more emails from musicians wanting to play and now spend most of my lunchtimes watching spectacularly talented people performing on YouTube. We’ve narrowed it down to our favourite eleven for this month and some of their videos are below. Make sure you check them out below.

So, if you’re free on Friday (and even if you aren’t) you should definitely pop along and visit us at Lates. We’d be delighted to see you there!

More information about Lates with MasterCard

Andy Glynn

Miranda Quammie is a singer, songwriter, piano player and native of Stoke Newington who combines elements of folk, classical and pop to captivating effect on her debut album, Tempest.

Acoustic London-based duo, August and After, weave abundant vocal harmonies onto a bed of intricate guitar arrangements and story-telling lyricism.

Ki Yoshi is a soulful singer-songwriter from Camden.

Australian born singer/songwriter/guitarist/ukulele enthusiast Angela Ashby brings joyful acoustic melodies with occasional rocking rhythms to your ears.

Hailing from the south coast, Tom Bradley blends his laid back beach sounds with his soulful vocals, drawing comparisons to the likes of Jack Johnson and Paolo Nutini. His songs range from reggae tinged summer anthems, to harmony-laden Fleetwood Mac throwbacks.

Winnet’s background as ballet dancer and actress gives her a unique charismatic quality as a performer on stage, which compels her audiences and embellishes both the style and subject of each song. This coupled with her own individual vocal timbre marks her as a tremendous new comer to the business. An utter delight to watch.

Bluesy, big-voiced singer-songwriter Hayley Tucker writes songs with a story. Accompanying herself on her acoustic guitar, expect some folky soul with sass.

Ben Lim writes and sings songs, only to slow his inevitable transformation into a robot, by way of his day job.

Also playing is:

• Sophie Kilburn, a singer-songwriter originally from the Derbyshire Dales who describes her own unique style as a blend of Adele, Eva Cassidy and Lily Allen.
• Autumn Fox, an acoustic songwriter from Memphis Tennessee promising to bring a flavour of the south into folk / pop music
• Singer-songwriter R P Williams.

Summer is drawing to an end and it is with a tinge of sadness that our two amazing special exhibitions, Animal Inside Out and Scott’s Last Expedition, make their last appearance at Lates this Friday. They’ve both had an amazing run and taught us all so much about exploration, endurance and anatomy.

If you haven’t yet seen what the insides of a giraffe look like or read Captain Scott’s inspiring and tragic diaries, I’d definitely recommend you make the trip this Friday for the last late opening of the season.

And to celebrate what’s been a spectacular summer of Lates, we’ll of course be bringing back our open-mic night in the glorious Central Hall. We’ve had even more submissions than for previous months and have chair-danced our way through almost 300 youtube videos to pick an outstanding line-up for August.

A Girl Called Ruth

We’ve got live performances by Sebastian Blake, Hannah Scott, Laura Koonjean, Claudia Heidegger, Resonance, Lili Burr, Mitch Daniels and A Girl Called Ruth. To give you a taste of what to expect, there are some of their videos below to get you in the mood!

Laura Koonjean, said, “It’s such a gorgeous, historic venue to play. I am excited to be part of the prestigious Lates with MasterCard. Can’t wait to share some Friday fun and songs with everyone.”

We’re also happy to say that our friendly, yet eccentric, Crazy Artistes are back for another spin at speed-sketching in the galleries. Find them in the corridors, quickly draw the specimen they’ve brought out of the collections and you could win a prize from their stash of Museum goodies.

After this month Lates will be taking a break until 26 October when we’ll return with the first late night opening of the Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition.

Andy Glynn

Visitor Events Manager

Find out more about Lates with MasterCard

Sebastian Blake

Hannah Scott

Claudia Heidegger

Mitch Daniels

This month's Lates blog posts are from guest Andy Glynn, our Visitor Events Manager:

In the Lates team, we’re busy prepping for our first open-mic session at Lates with MasterCard but I had a few minutes to chat with 3 of our ten performers and ask them a few questions about this Friday’s event.

Sid Batham, Felix Fables and Meg Cavanaugh told us a bit about their experiences with open-mic nights and why they want to perform at the Museum. We’ve also included performances of them and the other artists to give you a taste of what to expect from Friday’s event.

Why do you want to perform at the Natural History Museum?

Felix Fables: For our band, busking has been a very big thing. That immediate interaction with the audience is something we love and we think Central Hall is going to be great for that same type of interaction. We think we’ll get a really good vibe going on.

Meg: It’s such an impressive venue and a great building. I had heard about the after hours events and how popular they are, and said wow, how amazing would it be to be able to perform there.

Sid: It’s a really nice, beautiful building and the event seems like it’s going to have a bit of a different atmosphere than other open-mic venues.

Felix Fables

How important are open-mic nights to musicians in London?

Sid: Very! Opportunities like this, to get a guaranteed audience, are really great. They’re a good chance for getting your name out there.

Meg: They’re really important for the music community too. It’s a great time to meet your fellow musicians and somewhere you can practise your material.

How would you describe your style of music?

Felix Fables: Up-beat folk with double bass and four-part harmonies. We use all acoustic instruments and are kind of loud! We’d say we were an audience interactive band!

Meg: I’d describe my music as sultry folk with a bit of a funky country rock tone.

Sid: Soul, but a new soul and very stripped back. Simple, just simple songs that are both soul and pop.

Sid Batham

What inspires you when you’re making music?

Meg: Listening to other music really inspires me, as well as life experiences. I’m interested in deep themes and don’t just look at issues of love and loss.

Sid: I get a lot of inspiration from stuff that goes on around me. Things I go through or that my friends go through. I’m also really inspired by film – I’m a big Tim Burton fan.

Felix Fables: A tricky question. I think it’s easy to get bogged down with stuff and not enjoy what you’re doing and really, the point of music is enjoyment. That’s what’s inspiring to us.

Hear Meg and the rest of our artists performing below and find out about what’s happening at the rest of Lates this month in my previous blog entry.

Find out more about our Open-mic at Lates

Also playing this Friday 29 June:

I managed to get off the treadmill of work for five minutes yesterday to take a look at the fabulous new camel on display in the Central Hall (below) as a preview for the soon to open Animal Inside Out exhibition. It stood imposingly, surrounded by admirers taking photographs of themselves beside it ‘and practically kissing it as they did’, according to Julian, our Sales and Systems Manager.

This was in between his trying to make arrangements to fix a guttering light in the Central Hall, removing some children playing at being pterodactyls on the balcony and discussing with me and Gary, newly promoted to Head of Visitor Services, whether the best place for the camel at tonight's late opening would be in the middle of the Blue Bar (no!). To see where it will be standing, you'll have to come to the Museum tonight.

Above: Last month's late opening of our Scott's Last Expedition exhibition (left) and the enigmatic Captain Scott who was thought to have died on 29 March 1912, as photographed by Herbert Ponting.

Earlier this week I was at a conference at the Royal Society, which is situated very close to Waterloo Place where there is a monumental bronze statue of Captain Robert Falcon Scott. I gave it a nod as I passed, for not only do we have Scott's Last Expedition exhibition on here at the Museum, but one hundred years ago on 29 March 1912 the intrepid – not to say superhuman – Captain Scott and his companions finally gave up their unequal struggle with the mighty powers of Nature and passed into history. I have just found out that, movingly, the statue was sculpted by Kathleen Scott, his widow, which explains the special resonance that the statue possesses.

We are marking the anniversary at Lates with Mastercard with a special free poetry and song performance by poet Kiran Millward Hayward (left) and folk-guitarist Jake Wilson in the Darwin Centre café (close to the entrance of Scott’s Last Expedition) between 18.30 and 19.45. Kiran will be performing readings from Last March, a collection of poems about the expedition commissioned by the Scott Polar Research Institute. These readings will be woven around by songs from Jake’s All’s Well, which are inspired by Scott and his men.

Scott’s bronze overlooks a rack of blue Boris bikes. As the weather has been so fine I was pretty tempted to hire one of these after the conference and cycle back to the Museum, as long as Lycra wasn’t involved. And, if I was not already going to be here chained to my desk like a camel to a water wheel on Friday, I would indeed be very tempted to bike over to us in the evening for a glass or two at our bars.

I hope that you will be equally tempted to join us for what was After Hours with Mastercard and is now called Lates with Mastercard (After Hours is now the title for all our adult evening events, not just the final Friday of the month) and raise a glass or two to the heroic endeavours of Captain Scott and his team.

To book tickets for the Scott's Last Expedition exhibition for tonight, please call 020 7942 5725.

Animal Inside Out opens to the public on Friday 6 April, and has its first evening opening at the Lates in April.

Read the recent blog about Scott's last days remembered in our exhibition. And read the news story about this week's visit from the British Services Antarctic Expedition team.