Archives for Culture
Women, Work, and the Weight of Expectation
ANTHEA CARLING The Trouble With Women opens as part of Coastal Currents Festival on 5-6 and 12-13 September in the artist’s own home in Hastings Old Town. Lauren Joy KennettWriting…
Afrit Nebula: What Next?
An Afrit is a powerful demon in Arabian myths. A Nebula is an interstellar cloud of ; Local band Afrit Nebula have been gigging mainly around Hastings, St Leonards and…
PhotoHastings ’26
GARY WILLIS PhotoHastings’ collective of photographers aims to inspire an appreciation of contemporary photographic art through its annual festival programme. It is directed by Tracy Jones and Neale Willis, with…
Colouring to Heal
East Sussex-based author, artist and trauma-informed practitioner, Corina Stupu Thomas, has recently published We Tell Many Stories: A Therapeutic Colouring Book and Reflection Journal for Women’s Healing and Self-Discovery. The…
Fetish & Fantasy – Grace Lau
VICTORIA KINGHAM Since the early 1980s, Grace Lau’s photographic journey through sexuality, gender identity and sado-masochistic subculture has explored a world largely hidden from mainstream view. Fetish Stories brings together…
Fell: The Horror
ELIZABETH ALLEN Fell, ‘freely adapted’ from Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, is a dramatic work which challenges both the audience and the actors. Writer and director Frances Viner…
Cabaret Franglais Comes to The Stables
BallyBest theatre production company is delighted to bring Café Franglais to The Stables. It’s a café-chantant celebration of French and English popular songs, with vocalists Tamara Leggett and Neil Sellman,…
Afri-Co-Lab September Events
On Saturday 19 September, for the next instalment of Creative Chill, their series of creative workshops, Afri-Co-Lab will welcome back local artist Elaine Mullings for a workshop called Care In…
Hastings’ Hidden Stories – and Pizza
On 18 September, Spun Glass Theatre launches Pizza & Plays – a new theatre night inspired by Hastings’ history, and created in partnership with Hastings Museum & Art Gallery. The…
Roger McGough with Penny Pepper at White Rock
St Leonards’ own writer, poet, and disabled activist Penny Pepper, hot from the world premiere of the D-Punk documentary film, is excited to be the support for legend Roger McGough…
Arts Forum News
Hastings Arts Forum, the long-standing quality arts collective, is staging two new exhibitions this month. The first, Smalls! HAF Small Works is on until 19 September, and reflects its title.…
Tom Hunter: From Squat to Saatchi
VICTORIA KINGHAM Hackney in East London (nowadays a boho-arty des-res area, affordable only to higher-paid professionals) had a bad reputation in 1997. A number of its 1960s-built tower blocks were…
Longshore Drift
DAVID EP DENNIS Charles Dickens came to Hastings in 1861 to perform a public reading of A Christmas Carol in the Old Music Hall, now called Yates’s Wine Lodge. This…
MASS Observations
DAVID MILTON One of the many kiss-of-death committees which blight the lives of all small towns decided at the planning stage that De La Warr Pavilion could do without a…
Classical Music News
Max Baillie, violinist, musicologist and entrepreneur, has been touring with his outstanding and unusual Lodestar Trio, who many of you will have heard when they played for the first time…
After Dark
Michelle Mildenhall Returns with a new exhibition Courtesy of Michelle Mildenhall After Dark, a striking new exhibition by latex artist Michelle Mildenhall, opens at the Electric Palace Cinema on 5…
900 Years of Embroidered History
The monumental Hastings Embroidery will be on public display for the first time since an exhibition at the Bridge Point Arts Centre in Rye in 2019. The embroidery was created…
Coastal Currents 2026
TINA MORRIS After the privilege of producing this festival for 15 years, one thing has become abundantly clear: this area is full of extraordinary people making extraordinary work. Every year,…
Hastings Book Festival Goes Larger
TIM BARLOW The 9th annual Hastings Book Festival will take place from 10 to 20 September, featuring 40 events and more than 80 speakers and performers. This year’s festival promises…
How Elite French Transformed Anglo-Saxon
JUDE MONTAGUE 14 October 2026 is the 950th anniversary year of the Battle of Hastings. From that point on, modern English would be permanently changed through the imposition of French.…
Nadia Reid at Henry Ward
Nadia Reid’s fourth album Enter Now Brightness was released at the beginning of last year. She has been thinking about the past decade. “Ten years of documenting my life in…
Bohemian Rapsody
A local musician makes his mark CHRIS CONNELLEY Some musicians start early. Mozart, for example, is rumoured to have composed his first piece at the age of five, while Prince…
Big Band at Flatland
HARRY HAWKINS AND VERA BELL Staged within the space of Tawfik Nas’s installation at Flatland Projects in Bexhill, the 17-piece incarnation of the Statue of Liberty Big Band (SoL) was…
Trash Cannes 5-Day Film Competition
MARK FRENCH This is a unique opportunity to take part in the annual Trash Cannes Film Challenge and Coastal Currents Arts Festival during September. The challenge is to make a…
HIP BOOK REVIEW: Escape From Germany – Another Side
You Can Go Now…But Leave the ButterBy Barbara SchultzThe Book Press, £ BY VICTORIA KINGHAM A few weeks ago we previewed Barbara Schultz’s memoir of her mother, who escaped from…
Poetry Corner: heatwaves
PETE DONOHUE the memory of rain upon this land dragged from a cooler distance called out several weeks beforehand when times seemed somehow greener squeezes a tear out onto my…
Explore The Arch Latest Project
GAIL BORROW In the latest exploration of trailblazing women who travelled great journeys around 1000 years ago, Explore The Arch Theatre explores Agatha of Hungary at Pevensey Castle. Early-career team…
Twins, Cancer, and Comedy
People are often quite curious about what it’s like to be an identical twin. Local sisters Anna and Georgina Lewis have been asked this question many, many times, and decided…
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.…
Duck, Toast, and the Sacrament Reimagined
NICK TUCKER For all of you who have seen Bob Log III live before, you will know he defies description. For any of you who haven’t, that makes my job…
Booth’s Dream
MARK WALTER Colin Booth explores mortality and minimalism in his new exhibition titled I talked with you in a dream at Electro Studios project space. Booth is a multi-disciplinary artist…
Hypha Studio Space Relaunch
Following a rather unexpected studio move earlier this summer, mosaic artist Emma Law is now settling into the Hypha Studios space in Priory Meadow (the former Shoe Zone unit), and…
The Hybridityof Kim Wan
TOBY BULA-EDGE AND VERA BELL Electro Studios hosted Kim Wan’s new exhibition Hybridity on 8-9 August, with an open view the evening before. Graphic painting Shown to a soundtrack of…
TV Pop Up Museum
TOBY BULA-EDGE A look into the past was on offer on August 8 at the first Television Museum pop-up. The event, run by charity Screen Culture UK, aimed to give…
Contemporary up for Award?
NICK PELLING Something extraordinary has happened. Hastings Old Town has reached the last six of a European competition. To be more precise, Hastings Contemporary is the only UK gallery selected…
Skinny Sunday Youth Fest
HANNAH DEEBLE A fresh wave of emerging talent will take over Studio 27 at Hastings White Rock Theatre on 23 August, as Skinny Sunday – the one‑day festival curated, produced and…
Dutch toTake the VOC Amsterdam Home?
DAVID EP DENNIS An ever-present reminder of the power of storm and tide for the last 277 years, something sits at St Leonards. At the lowest tides of the year, when the…
Tested by the Waters
Sea-swimmer, dog-owner, and relative newcomer INGRID ALLAN dips her toe in the waters around Hastings TOBY COLLINS With the recent Blue Flag and Seaside Award given to Marina and Pelham…
Coast is Queer
David Milton Forty-odd years ago, the most important gay artist of that era, John Yeadon, suggested that the then New Painting should be boldly confrontational and transgressive. His luminous depictions…
From the Ecclesiastical to the Educational
VICTORIA KINGHAM Joseph Stannard loves music and he loves film. When he isn’t carrying out his duties as deputy editor of long-running music magazine The Wire, he is investigating the…