Author Archives: Victoria Kingham
What’s in the Air? A new graphic novel rises
VICTORIA KINGHAM Artist Jude Montague, ever interested in the history of radio and TV, has produced a lively and sometimes extraordinary graphic novel, detailing the beginnings of radio in Manchester.…
John Donaldson New CD Release
VICTORIA KINGHAM Due to be released in August is an album written entirely by pianist John Donaldson, founder of Jazz Hastings. We Were Together, I Forget the Rest, dedicated to…
From the Ecclesiastical to the Educational
VICTORIA KINGHAM Joseph Stannard is an enthusiast. He loves music and he loves film. When he isn’t editing record reviews in a music journal, he is exploring the paranormal. “I’ve…
Greenhead’s Seagulls at Arts Forum
Local Hastings artist Bill Greenhead invites you into the mind of a seagull. Imagine a universe where Earth is not dominated by humans, but by avian creatures that call themselves…
Wertico One-off at Jazz Hastings
VICTORIA KINGHAM Soft-spoken and unassuming, Paul Wertico becomes, behind his kit, a force to reckon with. You can hear why he remained for many years the lynchpin of the Pat…
Not Birnam Wood But Hastings Castle: The Scottish Play
Family-friendly, funny Shakespeare comes to Hastings Castle on the West Hill Hastings Castle will welcome The HandleBards to the West Hill on Friday 10 July for a riotous open-air production…
Tickets on sale for Alfie Moore – next year!
If you are a fan of his Radio 4 programme It's a Fair Cop, now in its 9th series, join Alfie Moore, 6the former police sergeant turned stand-up comedian from…
Wertico One-off at Jazz Hastings
Soft-spoken and unassuming, Paul Wertico becomes, behind his kit, a force to reckon with. You can hear why he remained for many years the lynchpin of the Pat…
To Improvise A Mountain: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Curates
De La Warr Pavilion have secured To Improvise A Mountain: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Curates, as part of the Hayward Gallery’s touring programme. Yiadom-Boakye is one of the UK’s foremost contemporary painters.…
Cage Fighting
An interview with local actor and Mixed Martial Arts specialist Francis Saunders Q: Francis, you’ve had a remarkable journey. How would you describe your life in one sentence? A: A…
Bottle Alley Art Market – Call for Stallholders
Application is free for a stall at the most atmospheric summer art event of the year. This year’s guest selector is Becky Beasley, Professor of Fine Arts at Goldsmith’s College,…
Anthropop Art
DAVID MILTON Having comprehensively plumbed the theme with Seaside Modern (2021), Seafaring (2022), Undersea (2025), and this year’s C-list celebrity co-curated The Open: Odyssey, Hastings Contemporary now presents two more…
Short Film from Rickshawpix
A short film by Lindsay Jayne suggests we accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative
Art for Carers Funded till 2027
Drawing Life will be able to continue delivering art classes for carers and those they care for until mid 2027, thanks to funding from The National Lottery Community Fund. Judy…
John Donaldson New Release Preview
John Donaldson, pianist, composer, and founder of Jazz Hastings, will launch an exceptional CD in September, featuring Donaldson, Rob Luft, Rebecka Edlund, Tom Wilson, Norma Winstone, and the amazing Jeff…
Good Grief Festival:Joy in Sorrow
VICTORIA KINGHAM Over the bank holiday weekend an unusual festival took place. Curated and arranged by the development education centre (DEC) 18 Hours, and called Good Grief: A Festival of…
A Song as Lovely as a Tree
Bev Lee Harling is a disarmingly innocent-looking singer, songwriter, musician and actor with a lightness and naturalness to her performances which belie the care, originality, and thought with which they…
Fear of Last Orders go Live
Fear of Last Orders Go Live Hastings-based punk skiffle bar band Fear of Last Orders will be recording a new live LP on Friday 12 June, publicly, at 1200 Postcards…
Powerful Antidote at Jazz Hastings
Hasting’s vibrant jazz scene is set for a powerful dose of energy as Matt Ridley’s Antidote take the stage for a special live performance. Led by acclaimed bassist and composer…
Cosmopolitan Jazz at The Stade
VICTORIA KINGHAM Rob Luft and Elina Duni have been making music together for about nine years, resulting in a near-perfect harmonic rapport. Their choice of numbers is truly universal –…
Ripping Yarns
VICTORIA KINGHAM French’s bar in Robertson Street is all exposed brick, chandeliers and cocktails, offering an intimate atmosphere. A couple of weeks ago that atmosphere was augmented by a literary…
Conflict and Contemplation: A Manufactured Thrill and Quiet Promise
VICTORIA KINGHAM The name of Henry Normal is well-known to audiences that frequent literature festivals, Radio 4, and late-night TV comedy. Normal is also responsible for a raft of quality…
Musical Conversations on the Edge of Modernity
VICTORIA KINGHAM Sonatas for violin and piano were never my thing, really. But I dare say I have watched and listened to more of these in the past four years…
All us Women 2026
VICTORIA KINGHAM Tucked away in the Rooftop Gallery of De La Warr Pavilion is a small but intriguing exhibition underlining societally-nurtured patterns of violence, emotional imbalance and trauma against women.…
A Triumph for Music and Humanity
VICTORIA KINGHAM Matthew AndrewsRyan Zhu, 2026 winner Hastings International Piano competition had sponsorship to offer free places in the early stages for everyone who wanted to wander in off the…
Alexander Wolfe, Life, and the Universe
VICTORIA KINGHAM Wolfe has that gift of good songwriters: an ability to make lyrics sound like conversation, and vice-versa. I’m not sure that it’s a technique you can learn, but…
Music of the Sphere(s)
VICTORIA KINGHAM Robert Mitchell inhabits a musical sphere which John Fordham, writing in The Guardian 14 years ago, called ‘private’. His albums from 2008 onwards corroborate this view in several…
In service of all the dead: World AIDS day
VICTORIA KINGHAM Erica Smith, founder of Hastings Creatives, is herself a maker. The evening of 1 December (particularly stormy) was an opportunity to display her recently-finished quilt and hear the…
Betty Parsons: Abstract Expression, Spiritual Intervention
VICTORIA KINGHAM The 1913 Armory Show in New York was an exhibition which brought to America, for the first time, the Modern Art that we now see as seminal: Matisse’s…
Fabian Willmann Trio at Jazz Hastings
VICTORIA KINGHAM There’s a rare band coming to Jazz Hastings in December, one which reveals just how far the Jazz world extends, both musically and internationally. The trio is led…
Judging the Brilliance ofthe Brilliant
VICTORIA KINGHAM “Competitions”, once said the great composer Béla Bartók, “are for horses, not artists.” Flamboyant pianist Glenn Gould has said that he regards piano competitions as ‘blood sports’. Chopin…
Paul Gunn at The Stables Theatre
Pianist and Composer Paul Gunn returns to The Stables Theatre to play his unique multi-genre music combining Baroque, Classical, Latin and Rock influences. He is joined this time by Brazilian…
HIP BOOK REVIEW: How the Vote was Won
Mary Raleigh Richardson: The suffragette arsonist who slashed the Rokeby VenusBy Helena Wojtczak, Hastings Press, 2025, pb £, hb £25REVIEW BY VICTORIA KINGHAM The vagaries of the Art world are…
The Mozart of Basin Street, Cable Street, and Rotherhithe
VICTORIA KINGHAM Sometimes it’s difficult to know where to even begin talking about music which is so good that it takes your breath away quite literally, and unexpectedly. Photo: Peter…
Fun in the Post-Apocalyptic Slime
VICTORIA KINGHAM Along with T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, W. B. Yeats’ Second Coming must be one of the most-quoted poems of the past hundred years. Things Fall Apart…
The Complete Lewis Floyd Henry
VICTORIA KINGHAM Walking along a rather quiet stretch of St Leonards seafront the other day in the warm greyness of late September, you may have been surprised to hear a…
Hastings Contemporary: Environment, Observation, Protest
VICTORIA KINGHAM The new three-artist exhibition at Hastings Contemporary has much to recommend it, both in imaginative curation and artistic excellence. The large room occupied by local artist Sophie Barber’s…
An Unassuming Prodigy
Again, musical excellence takes varied, and often unexpected, forms, genres, and performance levels, and Hastings seems to have more than its share. We go on here to hail yet another…
Jamming in the Summer Sun
VICTORIA KINGHAM interviews the indefatigable Max Baillie, violinist, viola player, virtuoso, musical powerhouse, Founder of St Leonards Concerts and leader of The Fritz Brothers and other ensembles, in the first…