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. It’s a personal story, featuring (among a cast of dozens) her grandfather Sydney Wright and his wife Marjorie. Sydney was a cellist in a trio (playing in a Manchester picture house) who were recruited to take part in the second BBC broadcast from Metropolitan Vickers, which was the next broadcasting base after Marconi’s and named 2ZY.

It was a unique era – four years after the end of the unspeakable carnage of WW1, launching radio all over the country in a year that was, internationally, exceptionally creative in all the Arts, 1922 being an annus mirabilis for so many literary, artistic and social pioneers. A handful of these intrepid innovators broadcast live music, the first children’s programs, news, and French lessons, all from a tiny makeshift studio at an engineering works with a dominant, newly-built radio tower.

Montague has re-imagined her grandparents’ history in the context of the cultural history of the era, from the crackling of an aerial in 1920, and the birth of experimental wireless stations, to the first long distance ‘radio relay’ transmission, inaugurated at 2ZY and represented in Jude’s book with comparative sketches of the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, and the radio tower at Metrovicks. Her rapid drawings and text cover the pages in a random format, plentifully interspersed with dream sequences, word associations, vignette sketches of Manchester (a Lowry-like depiction of the entrance to Metropolitan Vickers covers a page, for instance), old train carriages, war tombstones (with a list of first names), a sequence of a woman chatting and cutting her hair into a bob (so significant for the flappers of the time), woman-to-woman conversations about the replacement of silk stockings and lingerie by exciting man-made nylon fibre equivalents, and the then thriving tailoring business in the North. At one stage the protagonists fly in a biplane – presumably a Vickers.

NO FEAR OF FLYING

It’s an unashamed, fascinating, and rather wonderful brain dump, arising out of Montague’s undeniable facility with pen, brush and design straight on to the page, and some cogent research. There are scans of newspaper articles and old photos at the back, which for me could have done with enlarging, as they look as though they might help to indicate the trajectory of the narrative, but only the headlines are big enough to read. Even the title has a generous assemblage of meanings – the ‘air’ as in broadcasting ‘on the air’, the network, the ‘air’ as in the surrounding culture, the ‘air’ as in the general Zeitgeist, the anxiety and exhilaration of creating a New Age. And there’s flying in the air too – a proliferation of owls, dreams of flying, and (when listeners started to write in to the station) a reference to a local story about a flamingo lost from the park. There are incidental chats about spiritualism, the opening of a box radiating the ‘energies’ of jewels (remember crystal sets?), the ‘crackle and the static of the air that waits’ – ‘so luscious – a spirit language’, all rapidly and copiously illustrated. And there’s a page on which the rows of Manchester terraces ‘seem to know a New Age is dawning’.

The introductions, by broadcaster and radio historian Paul Kerensa and musician Alan Hempsall, ex Manchester band Joy Division (now of Crispy Ambulance), are essential reading. They help to ground the reader in the narrative, which digresses so plentifully (sometimes wildly) through local and national culture of the time. The novel’s form, however, exactly echoes the content: it was the age of random and sometimes unintentional discovery, of burial of the past and celebration of the new, of an incorporation of science and technology into art (partly via the Futurists and the Vorticists) and the dismantling of representational tradition and the re-evaluation of Art itself. And if you get slightly confused about who’s who in Montague’s plethora of characters, and whether the illustrations are about imagined conversations or real social history, well then you’re into the moment of creation, as they all were.

What’s In the Air can be obtained from Montague Armstrong on 15 Kings Road (open Sats) any time, or online at montaguearmstrong.com. Book launch, readings, and presentations at Hastings Book Festival, 3 September

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 tricky, given that the main purpose of a review is, largely, to describe what you’ve seen. And I’m not entirely sure what I have seen.

But it was, certainly, transcendentally eccentric. Perhaps as a shorthand, I’ll start by describing Bob Log as a cross between late-period Tom Waits – the ragged discordant Tom Waits of Hoist That Rag – and Frank Sidebottom, with his large papier-mâché head swapped for a motorcycle helmet with an alien-looking breathing nozzle. Or maybe Elvis Presley reimagined by David Lynch, dark and impish. Bob wore a glittery one-piece jumpsuit beneath his silver helmet and emitted the frenzied sounds of a carnival barker on acid.

He also had stage props: a giant inflatable duck whom he introduced as his angry stage manager, then later reintroduced as a large yellow inflatable goblet for passing prosecco around the crowd – something I would describe as impractical. He also had a yellow working toaster on the corner of the stage, which was fed sliced bread throughout the show so the audience could listen to his music while enjoying the soft aroma of toast – which brings me to the music.

Without having heard it, you could be forgiven for thinking that everything described so far veers between self-consciously oddball and, well… gimmicky shit. But Bob’s special talent is that it doesn’t. It works perfectly together with the bizarre stage presence, and if anything, acts as a sleight-of-hand misdirection to show how virtuosic a slide guitar player, and effortless one-man band, he is. His music is all clang and stomp and driving rhythm with the sound of Delta blues mixed with hillbilly electronica, beneath a muffled rasping voice distorting into the microphone down the black funnel of his crash helmet.

INTIMACY AND ENGAGEMENT

The effect of this oddly funny lunacy was unique. I’d seen Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds two nights before in Brighton: they are a force of nature, but so is Bob Log III in a way you’re just not going to get from big stadium acts. There was an intimacy and a real engagement with everyone in the room. People were invited up on stage to be anointed with little gold stickers, or to take selfies sitting on his lap (as long as they had a piece of toast). They shared the sacrament of a giant inflatable duck, and everyone danced and smiled.

There was a rare sense of real joy, an ode to eccentricity and community and fun, that was both about the music and not about the music, yet only really worked because the music was so good and everything was done deftly so that nothing jarred or took you out of the moment. When it was all over, everyone poured out of The Piper into the dark summer night with the kind of smiles on their faces that only come from having shared in the strangeness of what it can mean to be human.

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 whose work explores material transformation and the poetic qualities of objects.

Touching upon fragility and transience (metaphors for our own mortality), Booth’s practice turns discarded or found objects into precise, highly-finished conceptual objects, all imbued with minimalism and a touch of humour.

Working across painting, photography, print, sculpture and installation, I talked with you in a dream is an eclectic survey of Booth’s new work: his recently-completed powder-coated aluminium fragments, interspersed with a number of older pieces – including a painting from his art school foundation year.

“Artists only have one way of working,” Booth states. “Their aesthetic doesn’t change, even though the material they work with does. This consistency, in the end, becomes their identity.”

The exhibition highlights a career-long dedication to consistency of vision. Influenced by Arte Povera, the collection balances heavy conceptual themes with a lighter touch.

Opening Celebration: Friday 21 August, 6.00-9.00. Galleries open Saturday and Sunday 22/23, 29/30 August, 12.00-5.00 Insta:
@electro_studios_project_space, @colin_booth

Her vision is growing the space into something much bigger than a studio—a flexible, community-led place that could become home to exhibitions, workshops, artist meet-ups, creative projects and, she is hoping, a Scrap Zone: a working reuse store where donated art and craft materials can be redistributed to artists, makers, schools, and community groups.

COASTAL CURRENTS

Emma Law will be exhibiting as part of the Coastal Currents Festival this September, and the space will be opening its doors as one of the festival venues. Enthusiasts can come along, see the exhibition, have a chat, and take a look at what’s beginning to emerge. If you’ve ever wished Hastings had another space for creative collaboration, she would love to hear your ideas.

FANCY GETTING INVOLVED?

As the project develops, Emma is hoping to gather a small team of enthusiastic people who’d like to help shape it from the ground up.

She is particularly interested in hearing from people with experience or enthusiasm for:curating exhibitions, gallery invigilation, volunteer coordination, community engagement, marketing and social media, fundraising and grant applications, administration and project organisation, workshop facilitation, creative reuse and sustainability, and building local partnerships. Whether you can spare a few hours a month or are interested in helping steer the project longer term, Emma would welcome connection.

Artist contact details and studio details: hyphastudios.com/emma-law/. Hypha Studios is a national charity project that works with landlords to match artists up with available spaces. More details at hyphastudios.com..-

Electro Studios hosted Kim Wan’s new exhibition Hybridity on 8-9 August, with an open view the evening before.

Shown to a soundtrack of avant-jazz/hip-hop, Wan’s art was perfectly at home in the slightly rustic space that is Electro Studios. He aims specifically to blur the line between fine art and graffiti, something which stems from his having become obsessed, in the 80s, with spray painting – “I just fell in love with big letters on walls,” he writes. Later he went on to study at the Winchester School of Fine Art.

The art on display was a mixture of his portraits and his graphic pieces. The portraits (some of which may be seen on his own website) are intentionally distorted. Painted quickly and heavily re-worked later, they move between the traditional and the technological. The process, and that movement, are clearly an integral part of the finished work. He cites Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach and Francis Bacon as influences, with a bit of DC and Marvel comics.

Apart from the feeling of the paint hitting the canvas, there’s an even greater sense of movement in the graphic pieces, where the combination of graffiti and fine art is most apparent. Swirling and violent lines sit atop a spray-painted background. The more violent images (one particularly resembled blood splatter) call very strongly to mind Wan’s other passion, which is boxing.

Wan is locally based, having fallen “into the underbelly of Hastings, with its artists, musicians and bohemian lifestyle” and completed his art foundation course at Hastings College 30 years ago. Judging by the details on his website, his subsequent career has lifted him from the underbelly into the art establishment. Nevertheless, the work maintains a surprising rawness and an immediacy that render it absolutely authentic, with a hybridity that stems not only from technique and intent but now, like that of his art heroes, the familiar tension between the eccentric and the establishment.

More details of Kim Wan and his work can be seen at kimwanart.com, particularly his extensive CV of exhibitions, films, and performance pieces. 

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 the public a flavour of what a TV museum might look like in Hastings. It also gave an opportunity for people to suggest what they might like to see in such a museum.

Hosted at the Tea Museum on George Street, the pop-up featured two reconstructed living rooms: one from the 70s, the other from the 00s. Both had the TV as the centrepiece – a position it has occupied for decades.

A virtual tour of a BBC mobile control van was also on offer. It showed the museum’s interest, not just in the cultural impact of TV, but also in the relevant technologies. The van had been used to film the 1966 World Cup Final – which, virtual tour operator Jon reminded us, was unfortunately the last time England won the competition.

Children’s TV was represented with some classic toys – The Wombles, Kermit the Frog, Noddy and the Teletubbies. The mood of the whole place was set with music – a long set of classic TV themes.

People were eager to get in before the doors had even opened, and a steady stream of people flowed in and around the room.

Another pop-up will take place on 22 August

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 as a finalist in the competition to win the prestigious European Art Museum award for 2026.

The Contemporary finds itself in illustrious and daunting company. For example, one of the other five finalists is the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which is actually the National Museum of the Netherlands and has a range of works that covers 800 years of Dutch history. The idea of the Contemporary up against the Rijksmuseum in a competition has the feel of a diminutive David up against an art-gorging Goliath. And there are four more finalists, all of which are quite big hitters.

A UNIQUE ANGLE

Amongst the criteria for selection is how the museums or galleries find “innovative ways to engage with issues facing society today”. All of which sounds like the panel of judges will be looking to see if the institutions offer some sort of ‘relevance.’ The Contemporary has arguably seen that its very position perched on the sea amid a working fishing community gives it a unique angle on the world. After all, the sea is always both local and global: a fun spot and a vast atmospheric engine. Consequently, recent and forthcoming exhibitions have been soaked in sea themes.

The Director of the gallery, Kathleen Soriano, and her team, have pushed hard for this, hoping to bring artists, scientists and fishermen together to explore the sea in all its myriad complexity. The recent Meet the Fleet programme (showing until 13 September) is undoubtedly an innovative move in trying to engage with the local fishing community.

On top of this, the Contemporary tries in many ways to reach out to the people of Hastings and surrounding areas by offering family days, drawing classes for carers and those they care for and the Pearls of the Sea outreach project which works closely with local schools. Also, the Coquina café upstairs, with its delightful view, is now free to access for all. And there’s so much more that there isn’t the space to mention here.

Whether all of this will enable an act of cultural giant-killing, we shall have to wait until late September to find out.

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 run by the young people of the Hastings Fat Tuesday Club – returns with a vibrant line‑up of rising regional artists.

Running from 3pm to 9pm, the event showcases the best new bands from across East Sussex and beyond, selected by the club’s young musicians as part of their year‑round youth music programme.

Supported by Youth Music and Love Hastings, Skinny Sunday gives young people hands‑on experience in event management, at the same time offering audiences a chance to discover the next generation of local talent.

Snapshot of Rising Artists

This year’s line‑up brings together a mix of indie‑pop, alt‑rock, grunge, synth‑driven dance rhythms and fresh songwriting. Amelia & The Housewives are Brighton’s shimmering indie‑pop outfit, currently riding a wave of excitement ahead of their debut album. They are known for sharp wit, chiming harmonies and infectious, sun‑soaked songwriting.

Cicadia are a 3‑piece alt/indie rock band from East Sussex whose debut EP blends confident riffs, tight musicianship and a growing catalogue of original material. Also from East Sussex, Fresh Air are a Mathrock/Midwest emo 3‑piece, formed in late 2025 and already making waves with their debut single released this year. They are known for intricate rhythms, emotive guitar work and a growing presence on the regional live circuit.

WaveMachine are Hastings’ own grunge‑punk‑surf fusion band, driven by gritty bass lines, high‑energy drums and powerful harmonies. From Bexhill, Tellums are an upbeat synth‑and‑guitar‑driven outfit, blending dance rhythms with indie sensibilities to create bright, energetic live performances. Sam Senior is a compelling songwriter whose recent EP showcases raw, emotive alt‑folk storytelling. A Platform for Young Creatives

The Fat Tuesday Club Performers are the young musicians who produce Skinny Sunday, taking to the stage and presenting original work developed through the club’s year-round programme. Skinny Sunday is part of the Fat Tuesday Club’s mission to give young people real industry pathways. The event has become a key moment in Hastings’ music calendar, celebrating creativity, confidence and community.

Tickets are available now, with free entry for under 18s (ticket reservation required) and £5 tickets for adults, keeping the event accessible for families and young music fans. .Tickets at tinyurl.com/SkinnySunday. Contact: Hannah Deeble at hftuesday@gmail.com for more information.

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 of young men with oversized erections, snogging rent boys and the occasional ape with a pitchfork (The Shining City on the Hill, 1986) were denounced, pre-Section 28, as “smut”.

Yeadon retreated into teaching and the creation of more oblique artworks – latterly, portraits of ventriloquists’ dummies, entities requiring others’ tongues to give them life. A retreat into silence then; but still suggestive of a primarily physical instrumental engagement with the artwork.

It’s a form of engagement largely missing from Queer Art, a new ‘Art Essentials’ handbook from Thames & Hudson written by curators Mollie E. Barnes and Gemma Rolls-Bentley. Their brisk introduction grandly eschews the depiction of “bodies, specifically sexually explicit bodies… That approach feels outdated and reductive.” Displays of genitals are no longer desirable; and today’s art-lover should instead engage intellectually with “a queerness that may have been unconscious or coded.”

Though it makes claims for universality (“queer art has always existed”) and provides a nifty globe-trotting overview of current practice, theirs is a strangely British position, an aesthetic austerity which insensibly appears as a concomitant of recent economic policy. Obliged to walk a thin line between the 21st century’s torrent of internet porn, the entrenched juvenility of the YBA-led market and the populist panic over paedophilia, Queer Art sidesteps many of the knottier issues raised by Laura Guy and Theo Gordon in last summer’s queer art edition of British Arts Studies. Here prurience appears as sober sophistication, self-censorship as a prerequisite of solidarity.

Through the Queer Lens

It’s a stance which speaks of the increasing power of the curatorial class. Meaning that artists are placed firmly in the hands of entrepreneurs and that discourse is foregrounded while the artwork offers a screen on which to project one’s ideas. This approach takes attention away from content or technique and from one’s encounter with the work itself to focus on the ‘queer lens’ through which images are not just interpreted but reconfigured. From it arises a certain aesthetic incoherence which, by laying claim to encyclopaedic reach, pitches globalising vision against individuated and localised lived experience.

Queerness, the duo write, “can be expressed through unconventional aesthetics, subject matter or artistic strategies that challenge dominant and artistic norms. The scope of queer art is expansive”. By this definition, perhaps of those mentioned in the text, only Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Hélio Oiticica truly articulate a queer trajectory, working widely across media and in multiple contexts – circumstances surely only afforded to them as men.

Even they are ultimately framed by Art History and the Art Market, the latter forming the over-riding ‘dominant norm’. And you’d be hard pressed to find an artist who wouldn’t swap their place in history for a place in today’s market. Most badly want both.

Quagmire of Kitsch

Multifaceted Mexican modernist martyr Frida Kahlo is inevitably on board in her role as the world’s new favourite artist and (dominant norm alert) “internationally recognised commercial icon,” to quote Tate Modern. Alongside her is the sine qua non of queer qulture’s fine art wing, Claude Cahun, whose oeuvre puts pretty much everything else here into perspective if not into a cocked hat.

Her vividly oneiric tableaux, realised as tiny monochrome photographs, articulate not just a refined sensibility but an entire more-than-real double life realised through art. Hers is a benchmark that others featured simply do not meet. The stale flatness of their output becomes readily apparent, the two-dimensionality of their artworks a sign of their essential ornamentality.

Other symptomatic figures are omitted, including Apollonian/Asclepiusian actionist Rudolf Schwarzkogler; kinky video trickster Ryan Trecartin; materially promiscuous sculptor Ty Locke; and boring AI bot botherer Emily Martinez. Performance Art, the queer practice sans pareil (Anne Bean, Franko B., Loo Zihan) is almost entirely absent.

Absent too are such national treasures as gimmicky inappropriate kidults Gilbert & George or ham-fisted polymorphous TV personality Grayson Perry. They, and other apparently all too heteronormative-adjacent has-beens, are in a stroke consigned to the naughty step of history. But if, in the wake of woke, they’ve unloaded a lot of dead wood, our curators sink all the same in a quagmire of kitsch, of bowdlerised Classical and Renaissance imagery repurposed as narcissistic mock-heroic schmaltz not a stylistic stone’s throw from the iconography of mid-20th century fascism.

This comes via a vanguard of fig-leafed feminist figureheads: one trick pony Gluck; self-infatuated fashionista Tamara De Lempicka; third-rate surrealist Toyen; and Groucho Club-grizzled syrupy schlocksmith Maggi Hambling. In the interests of balance, and demonstrating they can easily eclipse the womxn when it comes to bad taste, Tom of Finland, Erwin Olaf, Rotimi Fani-Kayode and Paul Cadmus bring up the rear. Literally.

At Intervals

The publication coincides with a recent exhibition at Amici Studio. Queer Painting: Intervals, curated by Katie Tomlinson and Chester Tenneson, both painters and lecturers, provides a timely textbook illustration of the theoretical parameters of Queer Art and indicates their limitations. David Harrison’s magic realist nocturne Blue Hare, with its shades of Palmer, Dadd and Watership Down, lacks the satirical bite of his earlier work (2004’s Bad Fairies with its naked David Blunkett and John Prescott) and after a century of surrealism, after Garbo, Genet, Bowie, Gaga and Beckham, it’s hard to discern anything tangibly queer in it. Garth Gratrix’s Flamboyant Flamingos, Cheeky Felicia meets the layperson’s expectations of a standard abstract, but also conforms to Queer Art’s intellectually convoluted dictum that such impersonal works positively “resist the demand for visibility that is often placed on queer artists”. That’s a sleight of hand too far.

Paul Harfleet’s “F***ing Fa***t” (Hastings) is an exquisite pansy painted on the wall, a dislocated memorial. It’s the most significant piece in the show, a quietly radical work which refers in its subject matter not to classical models (touchstone for all the aforementioned purveyors of kitsch) but to the domestic paintings of flowers typically undertaken anonymously, as far as Art History is concerned, and by women; and having a low- or folk-culture status. It’s fugitive, site-specific so can’t readily be bought, but also allusive and pointing towards the reality outside the gallery. Its power derives from its metonymic status; and it’s this too which cuts through Queer Art’s inchoate thesis around gesture and perception.

Through its absurd title, Victoria Cantons’ Untitled (If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done) (after Velázquez) takes a tendency towards supplementarity to an extreme, but the art-about-art image itself barely merits attention. Olivia Sterling’s Bar Maids is sub-Beryl Cook trivia while Chester Tenneson’s Untitled (A sandwich) offers a weak joke about acronyms. It’s all so bloody polite. Only James Cabaniuk’s Piggy which, in a riot of flesh and blood and shit and piss impasto, recalls Leon Kossoff’s excremental outpourings of existential angst (seen a while back at Hastings Contemporary), manages to transcend the overly restrained qualities that characterise the exhibition.

Queer Painting: Intervals, curated by Katie Tomlinson and Chester Tenneson, showed at Amici, 12 Claremont, from 26 June-11 July. Images of most of the work are still on view, however, at the Amici website at amici.art/collaborations/queer-painting-intervals-curated-by-katie-tomlinson-chester-tenneson along with details of the gallery and studio. A highly recommended gallery, combining collaborative exhibitions with a community studio. 

Two extraordinary female African musicians, Hanitra Ranaivo from Madagascar and Haymanot Tesfa from Ethiopia, visit Hastings this summer.

SONGS OF MODERN-DAY MADAGASCAR

On July 12, on a boiling hot Sunday afternoon, Hanitra Ranaivo, accompanied by Jean-Marc Bontemps, played her unique songs inspired by the ethnic sounds of Madagasy and fused with Afro-Cuban rhythms. She has recently taken up bass playing: having met The Police during her first trip to the United States, she said to herself (inspired by Sting) that one day she would sing while playing the bass. Thirty five years later, she has realised that ambition.

Ranaivo’s 2013 album Songs From Madagascar features her astonishingly pure vocal sound in songs with accompaniments both jazz-influenced and African traditional, with a hint of South American. Throughout, there are echoes of the wonderful multi-layered polyrhythms of Madagascar’s traditional music, which is necessarily influenced by its extraordinary multi-national history.

Her 2017 album Lasa is dedicated to the acclaimed singer Lhasa de Sela, who died at 37, leaving a truly international musical legacy of songs influenced by Mexico, French Canada, USA and Chile. Hanitra says: “I found her style of music bewitching and her songs very moving. I was very distressed by her premature disappearance.” 

The lyrics on Lasa, however, deal primarily with social issues. One song, Ampela, tells of the plight of Madagasy fishermen. Despite local oceans once rich in fish, now huge industry fishing fleets (particularly from China) are plundering nearby stocks. Local boats must now go very far to fish: sometimes they never return and their wives grieve. Other songs sing of deforestation, same-sex love, mistreatment of wives and a rebellion of housewives. Instrumentation is provided by Bontemps on French hand-made guitar, Pascal Bouterin on drums and traditional percussion, and Mikael Seznec on bass, rubab, and satar. It’s a global, universal, inimitable sound.

Hanitra’s trip to Hastings was supported by Eleanor Thorn who runs Tuned In London, a unique world music venue in an ornate Rotherhithe church. Eleanor translated, for the audience, the story of the lament of a farmer for a missing zebu. An animal going missing causes distress and shame for both the farmer and the community. 

ETHIOPIAN TRADITION, VIA ROTHERHITHE

Haymanot Tesfa, who is due to play a Tuesday in August, plays the six-string lyre of Ethiopia (2,000 miles to the north of Madagascar) as an accompaniment to the voice. Her vocals are mesmerising, and she is inspired by the ancient roots and landscape of her land of origin. No two songs, or versions of songs, are ever the same. “I play in my own way, because I love improvising.” Her singing has not been widely recorded but you can find examples on youtube and vimeo (links below). 

The song Ambassel is about the beautiful town of Gishen Mariam, known for its honey and its holy monastery, where crowds of pilgrims gather each year. It is a piece of meditative poetry, transporting both performer and listener to a transcendent state. It is believed the right arm of the True Cross of Jesus was buried and given to the Ethiopian Orthodox monastery by St Helena of Constantinople, wife of Marcus Constantius, the first Christian emperor of Rome. 

Though now UK-based, Tesfa sings in the ancient language of Amharic, one of the most widely spoken Ethiopian languages (which, incidentally, is represented in one of the most beautiful and esoteric written scripts). This year’s performance at the Goat Ledge will be her second here. At her first, in July last year, she was lauded for both her extraordinary, almost other-worldly, sound and her colourful and artistic dress. Besides being a musician she is a visual artist and paints vivid scenes, both figurative and imaginative, and still life. Bright colours and textures are of daily importance to her. 

Haymanot Tesfa plays live on the beach at Goat Ledge, Tuesday 11 August, 5.30pm, FREE as part of Sunset Sessions.

ELIZABETH ALLEN

Anne Brontё was the youngest, least famous of the sisters. Yet hers is the novel that offers a stunning, overtly feminist, attack on the patriarchal structures of the mid-nineteenth century. It is The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, so much less known and applauded then Emily’s Wuthering Heights or Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, argues Frances Viner who has written and directed Fell, that represents issues which continue to demand interrogation.

The novel’s heroine is Helen Graham, creative, spirited and bored by the potential husbands offered by society. When she meets seductive Arthur Huntingdon, she recognises his moral weakness but is attracted by his apparently life-affirming gaiety, and is convinced that she can persuade him to a more upright life. She is, of course, deluded: their marriage, presented in remorseless, compelling detail, is a history of alcoholism and abuse.

At a time when women had no rights to divorce, Anne Brontё offered us in Wildfell Hall the story of a woman who effects an escape and establishes an independent life. In Fell, Viner focuses on the seduction and the disastrous marriage. What is it, she asks, that brings “naive women into the orbit of animal grooms? What is the initial attraction?” She emphasises Helen’s loss of innocence – spiritual, emotional and physical – and the destruction of her artistic creativity, along with the testing of her faith. The production, to be played in the intimate space of the Stables Studio, is very much an ensemble piece: the whole household functions as a chorus, witnessing and commenting on the action. The language is lyrical, and music, in the person of violinist Richard Van Zyl, is integral to the play’s effect.

When first published,The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was extremely successful but, after Anne’s death, sister Charlotte suppressed a second printing claiming that “the choice of subject was an entire mistake” and that “brooding over debauchery and depravity did [Anne] harm.” For many years this decision effectively buried a powerful text which can now be understood to have been a long way ahead of its era. In this audacious contemporary response of Fell, we have the opportunity to challenge Charlotte’s judgement.

Fell runs at the Stables from 24 August (open dress rehearsal) to 27 August. 

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 paranormal in sound, vision and real life. “I’ve always been interested in the supernatural, the occult, weird films and music,” he says.

While living in Brighton, Stannard noticed that a lot of contemporary music was influenced by horror, and that many horror films featured experimental soundtrack music. Accordingly he organised The Outer Church, a series of events which combined the two. The event ran, in the UK and abroad, for about five years, and a compilation was also released. After a spell in London, he wanted to get back to the sea and was eventually attracted by the rich occult history of Hastings.

Watching The Stimming Pool at a screening in London, Stannard noted that the Electric Palace cinema, which appears in the film, was a Hastings institution and a perfect venue, and began planning an event series to happen here. His event names are inspired by the work of comic book writer and chaos magician Grant Morrison, who drew and scripted the Vertigo comics series The Invisibles.

The Outer Church and The Invisible College are conflicting forces within the series. Historically speaking, The Invisible College was a name for the group of individuals, including Robert Boyle, who eventually founded The Royal Society. “It’s good to pay attention to synchronicities,” continues Stannard. On his move from an outer church to an invisible college, he remarks “You could say I’ve moved from the ecclesiastical to the educational.”

The first event will screen the 1993 film Body Melt (“There’s a lot of slime and gruesomeness… it’s very splattery, very DayGlo”, he explains) directed by respected film writer Philip Brophy. The film has been called ‘The Substance before The Substance’ – though on a much lower budget – and addresses the horrors of Big Pharma. One highlight of the film is Ian Smith (Harold Bishop from Neighbours) on a gun-toting rampage.

The evening will also feature live electronic sets from US artists Trigger Object and Dream Skills, both of whom make music that is thoroughly in keeping with the themes of Body Melt. “Everything I book is stuff I genuinely love, and hopefully there are like-minded freaks out there who’ll love it too.”

There is also, of course, a considerable tranche of avant-garde musicians in Hastings who might well be interested in this series, which with Stannard’s combination of enthusiasm and expertise, is sure to be a success.

The Invisible College will present as a special event at the Electric Palace Cinema on Sunday 16 August. For more details see electricpalacecinema.com. For a mixtape of some of the music he will use and a track listing, see the version of this article on our website at tinyurl.com/ysc692pt

The real Duncan Reekie is a Ph.D., writer and filmmaker, and lives here in St Leonards. Of his life, he writes that his favourite smell is the city after rain. His dream is that one day he’ll be out walking the dog and someone will say: “What’s your dog’s name?” and he’ll say: “Lola”, and they’ll say: “Oh … like the dog in Lola and Bill …” and he’ll say: “she is the dog in Lola and Bill!”

ELIZABETH ALLEN

A highlight of the Battle Festival was Barefoot Opera’s performance of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, and it proved particularly well-suited to the distinctive Barefoot style. That style involves an emphasis on movement, and the energy and extravagance of the production, its fun and farce, were highly appropriate to the crazy devices of the story line. 

In Cosi there is a potential for emphasis on darkness and pain, but here the comedy was always to the fore: it played effectively in the over-acted despair of the sisters (Katerina Oikonomou as Fordiligi and Ilona Nastase as Dorabella) at the departure of their lovers (Isaac Conibear as Gugliemo and Beartsz Thiede as Ferrando) and the lack of acrimony in the final reconciliations.

This production introduced a new complication. Here Don Alonso (Joel Robson) was not an ageing cynic determined to prove to young men that their trusted beloveds can easily be corrupted into infidelity because “all women are like that.” Instead he was a scientist setting up an experiment to prove this hypothesis. This seemed an unnecessary addition, and the Don’s putting on and discarding his white coat in the opening scene was rather confusing. 

Other production choices, such as the emphasis on changes of clothing – for the sisters as well as the disguised lovers and Despina (Zara Donaldson) – lent a strong visual correlation to the themes of shifting identities. A lively addition was the integration of always excellent keyboard player Lesley Anne Sammons into the plot – and a big shout out for those gold boots, Lesley Anne. 

There has been much critical discussion of the way in which in this opera Mozart’s music runs against Da Ponte’s libretto, Da Ponte being a cynic who supports Don Alsonso’s belief that all women are thus, while Mozart provides, conversely, particularly radiant music for deception and betrayal. Unlike Figaro and Don Giovanni, it is not the grand arias for which one remembers Cosi. The majority favourite is the tender ensemble of the sisters and Don Alonso, May the Wind be Gentle. The emphasis on ensemble pieces suited the always firm and clear singing of all the young cast. 

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 his late wife Agatha Coffey, is an absolute joy. Surely one of the most underrated talents on the British jazz scene, Donaldson has assembled a fine octet and produced seven outstanding tracks that showcase both his own compositional prowess and the particular gifts of each artist.

Who knew how well the idiosyncratic vocals of Rebeka Edlund and the (now octogenarian, still indomitable) Norma Winstone would combine, for example? And then Rob Luft, clearly one of the UK’s foremost jazz guitarists, employs characteristic technical brilliance and tasteful restraint on each number. Drummer Jeff Ballard has long been universally in demand – listen to his work on Evening Song for example, alongside the joint vocals, and you’ll immediately understand why. Mason’s bass throughout is unobtrusively faultless. Iain Ballamy’s soprano sound, too, is exactly right – on Agatha’s Song, say, which maintains a lilting, piano-led 5/4 riff while the horn blows across it – haunting, free, occasionally ecstatic.

The tunes have style and sensitivity without over-complexity. The careful arrangements, which along with the rhythmic variety, lend novelty to every number, and the audible, almost-palpable, commitment of all the musicians, make this one of the most memorable jazz releases of 2026. While totally new, the album’s sound contains within it all the best of British jazz over the past fifty years. It’s also particularly well produced: balanced without sounding over-slick, carefully dynamic with dramatic interludes, enriched with melodic diversity and overall that elusive thing, swing.

You can find a sample on our website at tinyurl.com/47hb24j7. CD features John Donaldson (composer, piano), Iain Ballamy (sax), Rob Luft (gtr), Tom Mason (bass), Rebecka Edlund, Norma Winstone (vocals), Jeff Ballard (drums), Graeme Flowers (trumpet) Hexagonal Records, releasing August 2026. Production and artwork by Gregory Heath.

TOBY BULA-EDGE

Bexhill will come alive on 15 and 16 August for the Bexhill Art Weekender which HIP spotlighted in the last issue. This time, we sat down with Flatland Projects director Ben Urban to discuss the upcoming event.

Originally based in Hastings but moving to Bexhill on Beeching Road in 2021, Flatland Projects co-organises the Art Weekender along with the De La Warr Pavilion. They work in partnership with the Bexhill Cultural Network, a group of 23 arts organisations who contribute to this year’s event.

Bexhill is perhaps seen as a bit ‘sleepy’ in comparison to Hastings, with its known vibrant arts scene. But Urban pushes back. For him, Bexhill is a place of “slow revolution”, a “quietly radical” place.

He continues: “It’s a place of many firsts. The first place of British seaside mixed gender bathing. That’s a really radical thing.” But he points out: “It’s not a very loud thing that Bexhill screams about.”

So, for Flatland and Urban, there’s an element of the definition of Bexhill: “I think one of the things I really enjoy about [any] space, is what you can claim it to be before it’s something. You can go two miles ahead but you then have to work backwards to make that justifiable. I think that’s true of our journey as an organisation. Putting the name above the door and then making that work.”

He compares it to the association of Hastings with the so-called Battle of Hastings – a battle that didn’t take place in Hastings, but the town “shouts loud enough” to claim it as its own and identify itself with (this actually happened in about 1067, but the same applies). For him this proves that the way a town defines itself isn’t fixed, and neither are its boundaries. He sees the South East coast as one large city, where there’s a fluidity of identity and space.

SEASIDE SHOUT

So the Bexhill Art Weekender is shouting for Bexhill. Urban continues: “It’s not about doing new stuff only on that weekend. It’s about highlighting the breadth of cultural activity already, weekend to weekend and week to week.”

The aim of the weekender event also seeks to redefine what people think of as art in a seaside town. Currently, Urban argues, this is defined by people from “the epicentres of the art world” – London, Manchester, Berlin – who capitalised on the economic boom in the early 2000s and set up artistic spaces here, a process that meant the art was London-centric and not conducive to assisting local artists. Flatland was set up to combat this process – all the founders are local and working class.

To redefine what we understand as art, the Art Weekender aims to showcase a wide variety of arts: “The Art Weekender isn’t meant to say that contemporary art is the only way of experiencing culture and place. Music is art. Performance is art. Painting is art. Being in a place is art,” he says.

That variety may mean you can’t see everything in one weekend. But Urban sees that as a positive. It proves Bexhill has something to shout about.

Perello consists of virtuoso classical guitarist, Eleanor Kelly, and Mike Hughes, percussionist, on vibraphone. There are few guitar/vibes duos, but Kelly and Hughes feel the combination is successful due to the instruments’ similar timbres and melodic ranges. Committed to promoting a wider understanding of the vibraphone, Hughes has collaborated with contemporary classical composers and with leading musicians on the British jazz scene. 

Perello play a mix of classical and jazz tunes by various composers ranging from Satie to Jobim. Kelly is also a particular champion of works by female composers. She has recently released Dedicatoria, a splendid CD of pieces by Carmen Guzmán, a once-celebrated but now largely forgotten Argentinian guitarist and composer who died in 2012. Kelly will play some of these.

The Beacon is worth a visit in itself. Judy Dewsbury (ex-fashion designer) and family moved into the rambling former language school in 1992, and have developed part of their home into a creative hub with a distinctly Bohemian feel. With the next generation already actively involved, The Beacon’s future appears to be secured.

Throughout the summer, The Beacon in St Mary’s Terrace offers food and drinks from Friday-Sunday inclusive. On Friday evenings there will also be free, curated live music and performances, of which the Perello Duo is one. 7 August, 7-9 pm. Perello Duo on youtube: youtube.com/watch?v=9kF2o3L7eYw

I first recall seeing what you could broadly call ‘Persian Miniatures’ when I was installing a show in Dammam, KSA. I still go back and forth to install artwork there. It’s an important place to me, for many reasons.

When I told people I was going to the Middle East to work I was met with a typical response, laced with prejudice and an underlying sense of Western superiority. In spite of more global cultural exposure, this remains. To me it was an opportunity to see art to which I would not ordinarily have access. The discovery of the miniatures was a part of this.

The miniatures are deceitfully tricky: the ornately painted borders seem to exist only for themselves – a skilful patterning and rendering of cloth butting up against wonky angles and lack of reliably straight lines. The flattening-out of perspective brought to mind dried flowers pressed in the pages of an old book. They elicit a joy for drawing, for looking, for seeing and trying to replicate things, especially natural objects. Above all, I liked the idea that these are a collaboration between skilled artisans: the guy who would do the flowers perhaps working on one border with the pattern guy waiting next to him, and the lad who draws the trousers sitting in the corner.

They were intended as illuminations for manuscripts, drawn and painted just to be bound and kept hidden; stacked on darkened shelves with the pages slowly discolouring from the edges inwards. At first I thought them unsophisticated, but I realised quickly that this wasn’t the case. They had been excised from manuscripts, mounted and framed for a gallery, but that didn’t mute their narrative, even if you had to work harder to understand it.

They also felt proletarian, in spite of the subject matter of historical moments: battles, conflicts, celebrations of stature and the rise of great figures (I’ve always disliked the idea of the heroic or the Saviour in art).

JUXTAPOSITIONS, CONTEXTS, AND ENQUIRIES

Frivolously, perhaps, I thought that it would be fun to copy them, but in doing so also to represent scenes of the life and people I was working with. That new art horizon was in its own way a kind of battle or land-grab; the importation of a cultural idea that was unrelated to its environment, and often in contradiction to it. These contradictions are the foundation of these drawings. At what point does celebration become appropriation? And does that really matter if you’re borrowing an aesthetic from an ironic culture that elevates Jeff Koons’ disco rabbits to an obscene value quite unrelated to their physical or artistic merit?

My drawings are essentially juxtapositions of environments, subjects and objects. They are about things that shouldn’t be there, and are an enquiry as to why they are. They are about the oil-and-water effect of cultural tension that can only exist in certain quarters, the navigation of new territories, politically, culturally and artistically. Mostly they are love stories; for a place, an idea and for people. They are narrative works that speak of moments soon lost to time, much like a page removed from a book and shorn from its original context.

There is heroism in them, but like all the best heroes they are the unwitting and unwilling, the smaller voices that don’t vie for attention but instead pass by without fanfare, making life more bearable by existing, rather than by a leading example.

Mark Spelman’s exhibition You Weren’t There is showing at Project 78 Gallery, Norman Road until 25 July

Do you have an imaginary friend? Or do you think you might be someone’s imaginary friend?

Imaginary friends make our worlds bigger, wilder and full of new possibilities. We can ask them things we are afraid to ask anyone else. We can tell them our secrets. They tend to be good listeners and can often take us to enchanted places beyond our troubles.

Several imaginary friends are joining me as I tour libraries in Sussex and Kent this Summer. I’ll be introducing audiences to characters such as Wendy Wildwood, The Twilight Dragon and my favourite imaginary friend Jamboranja Jamboram, the wild crow-man from my book We the Wild Ones.

I’m also delighted to be getting to know some imaginary friends through collaborations with two brilliant local writers. These began with a performance at Hastings Library by David Quantick, celebrating his book Imagine a Friend. The novella explores the theme of imaginary friends in a way that deals poignantly with loss and separation, while also succeeding as an addictive page-turner. Locals will probably find themselves seeing a version of Alexandra Park as they read.

The theme of imaginary friends is clearly in the air as Brian Moses’ new verse-novel is I am Ray’s Imaginary Friend, described as: A spell-binding illustrated verse story for 7+ year olds… Thought-provoking, heart-warming and beautifully written, an outstanding book to share with KS2 children.” (School Reading List)

Brian Moses and I will be performing together at Hastings library at 11.00am on 29 July. Brian will be introducing I am Ray’s Imaginary Friend, but can no doubt also be persuaded to share some of his classic, beloved poems, such as Walking My Iguana, that I had the pleasure of illustrating a few years ago.

At the event, I’ll be sharing my new picture book The Twilight Dragon. In my story, the soft colours of sunset become a dragon that carries a worried child to an endless world inside a cloud. Once safely in The Twilight Dragon’s world, she can wander freely, talk openly… and dance like no one is watching. I’ll be telling the story with the large original illustrations I made for the book.

Following our joint event on 29 July, I’ll be going solo, visiting libraries throughout the area with East Sussex Library Service. All performances will be full of stories, poems, pictures, music and joining in.

Please visit edboxall.co.uk, facebook, Instagram or the library service for details. All events are free and all ages are welcome. Bring your friends- both real and imaginary! 

TDS [Trump Derangement Syndrome] 2026 is an anthology of poetry and art from around the world. 28 contributors confront the catastrophic stupidity, cruelty, corruption, racism and murder precipitated by the disastrous Trump administration. Many people are incensed, horrified and driven to extremes of language by this – a condition that has been weaponised by the orange lunatic and his cronies against their opponents, to suggest that they are not capable of rational thought (as opposed to Trumpian policies that are of course cohesive, progressive and well thought-out!). This is a historical record for today and future times.

From the 28 contributions in the anthology, readings from which featured as part of Nottingham Poetry Festival, only two from England are included – the others are from around the world: USA, Canada, India, Europe and one from Scotland. Both artists live and work in Hastings and St Leonards. Felicity Stephen is a poet, writer and educator – she runs a series of workshops here, Hastings Writers for Wellbeing, and facilitates speaking and writing workshops for refugees.

Lee Allane is a poet, artist and illustrator, also living in Hastings.

TDS 2026, Poetry Global Network Publishing UK, ed. Mark Fishbein and Ray Whitaker. On sale on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and at all good bookshops.

BOO – (Battery Operated Orchestra) make “highly charged electronica with incredibly addictive melodies” and are an independent act now based in St Leonards. Their new album Sea Views Soft Rains, was made during the year in which they moved here from Newhaven. It’s out on stream now, and is to be released on CD in early August.

For everyone but the fortunate few who can survive solely on the quality of their music, their notoriety, or their retrospectively nostalgic appeal, sale of a modern album is much more than the simple laying down of ten or twelve quality music tracks. This – BOO’s eighth studio product – is, like many contemporary outputs, a concept album, based around pictures of an apparently fading seaside town. 

For your £17 album price you get not only twelve carefully-synthesised songs, a box lovingly folded with their own hands, but also 15 photographs. The whole package is intentionally fadeable, mutable, easily-damaged. It’s based around themes of love, loss, and redemption, ‘refracted through rain-streaked windows, empty promenades and abandoned ballrooms.’ 

This is a sophisticated collection of impeccably-produced, wholly electronic tracks The voices are part of the digital whole – controlled, measured, pitch-constant; the beat is crystal clear, decibel-sharp, bpm-consistent. What in other genres we might regard as the normal ebb and flow of musical engagement – natural variations in rhythm, pace, volume, pitch, sustain, and a lot of other things that imbue music with emotion, become secondary to a pinpoint-sharp, other-worldly exactitude. Why not? We live in a world dominated by these kind of images, where the medium is, definitively, the message. 

BOO are Brigitte Rose, born in Tasmania, and Chris Black, from Scotland, who now live here. Album release is 3 August.

The Coven Club, a fabulous new live music night to showcase femme-fuelled rock, punk and metal bands, returns to The Carlisle Rock Bar in Hastings in July this year. The night has already lived up to its aim of promoting up-and-coming talent, with April’s headliners Vampyra having since secured a coveted slot at this year’s Bloodstock heavy metal festival.

Vampyra, the feisty Kent-based horror punks who headlined The Coven Club just weeks after debuting their revamped line-up [pun intended!], have gone on to win the regional Metal 2 the Masses competition, securing them a place on the New Blood stage at Bloodstock.

The Coven Club is run by vocalist Amanda Brooks-Byron and bassist Steph Bennion of Hastings rock band Ditch the Demon. Both are keen to do more to support women who want to forge their own path in the male-dominated world of heavy rock. Hastings already punches above its weight in terms of its music scene and Amanda and Steph see the potential for something a bit different in town. All the big names in rock music started life in grassroots venues like The Carlisle. Vampyra are but one success story and The Coven Club will undoubtedly see more.

The Coven Club runs quarterly at The Carlisle Rock Bar in Hastings, with at least one local act appearing on each bill. The next event on Friday 24 July will feature: Key Change Electric, Deity and Devilry, and headliners Kindred Spirit Band, prog/folk-rock.

Tickets for 24 July (£5) are on sale from The Carlisle, online at Skiddle and will also be available on the door. Money raised through ticket sales will go directly to the bands, supporting original music.

GREENHEAD’S GULLS

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 “Sea Gulls”. What films would they make? What God would they worship? Do they even eat cereal?

All these questions and more will be answered in the fabulously quirky one man show at the Hastings Arts Forum in St Leonards on Sea.

A two-week show was launched on 10 July. Bill sported a brand new, never seen before, seagull T shirt designed and hand painted by the artist himself. Prepare to be amazed.

SMILEY FISH, ETC

Soon after that sees the return of the show Smiley Fish and Cheerful Things, which was such a success last year.  A great line-up of seven local artists is gathered to show work which aims to be bright, family-friendly and joyous – something for everyone and for every room in the house. The show will house paintings, prints, ceramics and the occasional ‘curiosity’, using inspiration from coastal themes, the local area, recognisable characters and folklore.

The artists are: Dawn Timmins, Judith Douglas, Fiona Granelli, Alex Leadbeater, Darren Baxter, Kate Winterton Dyer and Ed Boxall (who will also be presenting free storytelling events in his unique, inimitable, universally-appealing style.)

Bill Greenhead’s exhibition runs until 19 July at 20 Marine Court, St. Leonards. TN38 0DX. Smiley Fish runs 5-16 August. Wednesdays-Sundays. Open evening 7 August, 6-8 pm, storytelling 16 August 3-4 pm. All welcome. Visit hastingsartsforum.co.uk/category/exhibition for more information.

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 always been interested in the paranormal, the supernatural, and … weird music as well” he says.

While living in Brighton he noticed that a lot of music was influenced by horror, and that there were also a lot of horror films that featured experimental soundtrack music So he organised something called The Outer Church, a series of events which combined the two. They toured, in the UK and abroad, for about five years. He tried London but wanted to get back to the sea, and was eventually attracted by the rich occult history in Hastings.

Watching The Stimming Pool he realised that The Electric Palace, which appears in the film, was a beautiful Hastings venue, and began planning an event series to happen here. His event names come from the mind of Grant Morrison, who drew and scripted The Invisibles for DC Comics. It turns out in the end that the Outer Church and the Invisible College are actually two sides of the same organisation. Historically, The Invisible College was a name for the group of individuals, including Robert Boyle, who eventually founded The Royal Society.“It’s good to pay attention to synchronicities” continues Stannard. So, about his move from an outer church to an invisible college, he remarks “you could say I’ve moved from the ecclesiastical to the educational.” 

The Invisible Collage Vol I – puts together of some of the music he has assembled for the event (track list at the end of this article) 

The first event will show the film Body Melt (“there’s a lot of slime and gruesomeness, and it’s very splattery, very day glow”, he continues) directed by well-respected film writer Philip Brophy. Essentially the film has been called ‘the Substance before The Substance’ – though on a much lower budget – and features the horrors of Big Pharma, and Ian Smith (Harold Bishop from Neighbours) on a gun-toting rampage.

The evening will also feature live artists Trigger Objects and Dream Skills, both of whom make music that is thoroughly in keeping with this kind of film. “A lot of the stuff I put on is stuff I really love, and if other people like it, then hopefully it will bring out other freaks.” There is also of course a considerable tranche of avant-garde musicians in Hastings who might well be interested in this series of events, which with Stannard’s combination of enthusiasm and expertise, is sure to be a success.

The Invisible College will present as a special event at the Electric Palace Cinema on Sunday 16 August. For more details see electricpalacecinema.com. Mixtape tracklist as follows:

All these questions and more will be answered in the fabulously quirky one man show at the Hastings Arts Forum in St. Leonards on Sea.

A two-week show kicks off on 10 July with a private viewing with wine and snacks from 6pm to 8pm to meet Bill sporting a brand new, never seen before seagull T-shirt, designed and hand painted by the artist himself. It’s so new he hasn’t painted it yet!

The exhibition runs until 19 July at 20 Marine Court, St. Leonards. TN38 0DX

VICTORIA KINGHAM

The Love Supreme jazz festival takes place this weekend at Glynde Place, near Lewes. Tickets are still selling but it starts now (3 July) and if you like jazz, and you get the chance, you should really get over there.

I admit it’s outside this newspaper’s local area, but some of the greatest and/or most popular jazz musicians are there – Courtney Pine, Lemar, Ezra Collective, De La Soul, Joe Lovano, Jalen Ngonda. Represented in the programme (in slightly smaller letters for some reason) are two of the most exceptional musicians you’re ever likely to hear, both supremely gifted. I was privileged to speak with them ahead of the festival.

EMMA RAWICZ

Emma Rawicz, saxophonist, graduated from music college two years ago. A year before that, she had already made two albums, the second, Chroma, gaining her international recognition at the age of just 22.

It’s the most astonishing album – a combination of variety and whimsy, intricacy and sheer joy. Rawicz is known for experiencing chromesthesia – seeing colours and shapes when hearing sounds. If this sounds unlikely to you there is a long record of composers whose chromesthesia forms the basis of their music, from Messiaen, Scriabin, and Ligeti through to Duke Ellington and Billie Eilish. Visual artists Kandinsky, Van Gogh and Hockney also attested to it.

Even if you didn’t know this, there are unique forms in Rawicz’s music which defy genre and transcend boundaries. My favourite of her albums is the one she made last year with pianist Gwilym Simcock, the British updated equivalent of Keith Jarrett. Music pours out of him, and I could (and occasionally have) listen to his music all day. There’s so much freedom on this album, from two musicians who produce more or less stream-of-consciousness invention, alongside technical excellence. “I love playing with Gwilym” she tells me. They have exceptional rapport. “We both went to Chetham’s school (of music) and the Royal Academy, and had the same teachers we were there, and we both got into jazz and improvised music via the same sort of gateway people, like Keith Jarrett and Egberto Gismonti. We both love Brazilian music and we love ECM, and as a result, I think there’s a lot of unspoken stuff that works really well.” They have toured together “probably in five or six different countries” and written music together. “He’s such a really lovely, kind person, and obviously musically brilliant,” she adds.

Her tour schedule this year looks punishing, but she seems astonishingly fresh, not to say joyous. She divides her time, and her residence, between London and Berlin, and speaks to me from Berlin, from where she is touring festivals in Portugal and France, then the Love Supreme here, and straight afterwards at Copenhagen then the North Sea Jazz Festival at Rotterdam. “A busy summer,” she laughs.

The tenor has been her saxophone of choice, though she loves playing soprano too, and bass clarinet – she doesn’t always take all her instruments with her because it’s “just too much to carry!” For female players there is the additional fact that playing the tenor demands physical and internal strength. Whereas a six-foot, built male can sometimes be seen to swing the tenor, on its strap, round his bull-neck muscles, for women it’s a more significant weight. To maintain and improve her strength, Emma has become an avid weightlifter. To clear her mind of clutter between different activities (she’s also a huge reader, and has credited authors like Murakami and Adichie with inspiration for composition) she practises mindfulness techniques.

She is quick to praise the people she works with, and is especially enthusiastic about her current band Inkyra. At the Festival they will largely perform music from their latest, eponymous album. The band comprises David Preston on guitar, Gareth Lockrane on flutes, Scotty Thompson, Kevin Glasgow, and Jamie Murray. “I really feel one of the biggest privileges I have,” she adds, “is to be surrounded by such brilliant human beings.”

esperanza spalding

…writes her name in lower case. This is an aesthetic choice, but in my subjective opinion signifies a shift away from ego, thus away from personality or persona, and towards ideas: melodies, music, poetry, all the things that she is and that she does.

She has long been a jazz phenomenon, and a hero of mine since, in concert at a young age, she filled the main auditorium at the Barbican. In the 20 years or so since then she has had an unstoppable, world-class career trajectory.

On stage, she presents as one, organically, with her instrument – on that occasion an upright double bass. Just a few great musicians have this quality. It’s very special, and I think a kind of genius – like looking at a great picture, say Wheatfield With Crows, and as you gaze, it becomes all the wheatfields and all the crows in the world. In the same way, watching and listening to spalding becomes all the music in the world. More generally, jazz brings with it each moment the sum of the musicians’ skills and influences, cultures and backgrounds. It’s never the same way twice; the ultimate ephemeral art form, composition on the wing, human achievement at perhaps its most immediately creative point.

She has played at the Festival before, at the inaugural one in 2013 and again in 2016. She has also played at all the major venues in the world and with almost every top named jazz musician you can mention, and at the Obama White House. Neither her creativity nor her stamina seem to know any limits. She cites Milton Nascimento as one of her inspirations, and the last album she made (2024) was actually in collaboration with him, with a glittering cast of guest musicians. He’s 83 now, but you can still hear the kind of ethereality (one of his finer albums is called Angelus) that makes him one of the greatest vocalists of his time.

She agrees. “We’ve become friends, over the years” she says, “and developed a great rapport and mutual affection. You know, he has heart, joy in the whole process.” Recorded in the exotic climate of Brazil, there is some fine music on this album. Besides viscerally faultless bass playing, spalding sings too – singing is integral to her performance – with an enviable purity of tone. Some of the songs on the Milton + esperanza album are her originals, others could become, but aren’t, clichés – a far-out version of the Beatles Day In the Life for example. Some are inimitable Nascimento-Brazilian standards. All her albums incorporate a different musical approach – this one has Brazilian rhythm and language at its heart.

There are some very personal-sounding lyrics on the album Radio Music Society – but, she said “it’s fiction. Speculative. Just imagining contexts for these dimensions of the human experience to be at play.” Most of her words make sense not as straight narrative but as poetry, perhaps the ‘open-field’ mid-20th century American poetry where form and content are purposefully intertwined. I wondered about her process of composition.

“It very much feels like an architectural process, a structural craft. And it’s laborious, you know? Toni Morrison talked about writing as suffering. Like, don’t expect it to be all pleasure and fun.” The numbers grow organically. She sometimes creates a sketch, so “here’s the form, here’s the harmonic progression” then she hands it over to Matt (Matthew Stevens) and Justin (Tyson) and they put the flesh on it. “With a project like Exposure [her 2017, 77-hour one-take, limited edition physical album] we were really creating in real time.”

From 2017 to 2022 spalding was a professor of music at Harvard, and looking at various accounts, there seems to have been some controversy about her resignation. She’s quick to disabuse me of that idea. “It’s become this scintillating story! I just realised that the subject matter of my classes was at odds with the track record and current priorities of this institution.” Basically, representative of some of the traditional musical ideas she is trying to transform. “But I loved my experience. I loved my department. I left on such positive terms. It was just time.”

I wondered if she has a new album in progress, but she said no, not just now. She isn’t even quite sure what they’ll play on Saturday: “perhaps a combination of numbers from the last nine albums.” Love Supreme is just one of a swathe of prestigious international dates – after Cincinnati, Dallas, Atlanta, Portugal, then on through Spain, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands (at the North Sea Jazz Festival, where Emma Rawicz will also be – I hope they meet), then Norway, then back through the US again.

So there you go. At the age of 42, a unique, supreme musical powerhouse. You may already be at the Festival to see her. It’s a significant date, Independence Day. One of her songs, ‘Vague Suspicions’ [2012] she tells me, is about “the shit that my country was perpetrating around the world … standing by watching people being obliterated.” At that time, US versus Afghanistan, plus their Global War on Terror in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Pakistan. One wonders if any of her music at the festival will form a reaction to the current Great American Nightmare.

Hastings Book Festival is returning for its 9th year with a bumper programme of talks, performances and workshops. Their short story, poetry and non-fiction competitions are already open for entries. People interested in booking a table to sell books, or book-related wares, at the Book Fair on Saturday 12 September, please email hastingsbofair@gmail.com.

A terrific line-up of national treasures, fascinating speakers and local heroes will be making appearances in mid-September. One confirmed speaker will be historian and broadcaster David Olusoga, known for A House Through Time, Empire, and Black and British: A Forgotten History. Another speaker will be Liverpool Poet and broadcaster Roger McGough CBE, who is also president of the Poetry Society.

For more details, go to hastingsbookfest.org/competitions. Book Fair takes place 12 September at the Observer building, tickets on sale this week.

This is a fallow year for Glastonbury, allowing the litter-strewn, dog-infested, mud-trodden or dried-raw fields to regenerate. Instead a Lottery-funded project, the Everywhere At Once Festival, has temporarily taken its place, enabling unique performances everywhere in the UK between 26 and 28 June.

In Hastings two venues will participate: on Friday 26 The Piper will host a hybrid rave with Aaron Liberator, after an hour’s set by Admiral Sir Cloudeseley Shovell, a post-punk, post-metal, post-apocalyptic outfit whose latest album has titles such as Laughing Gravy and Head in A Noose, along with yet Another Greasy Spoon.

True to their usual genre output however, over the same weekend The Jenny Lind hosts Americana idol, multi-award-winning singer-songwriter from Oklahoma, Carter Sampson. Her recordings include Rattlesnake Kate and Tighten Up My Strings, and Queen of Oklahoma. Go along and see if you agree.

See thepiper.club for details

Visiting De La Warr Pavilion’s art shows recently has been a bit like the three cream cracker challenge – an unpalatably dry, instantly regrettable experience that has you reaching swiftly for a drink. After this spring’s Klondike-bleak barrenness of Jenine Marsh’s new wishes. (sic), with its aridly didactic deconstructed wishing-well and meaninglessly mounted dead pigeons, and the cack-handed colourblind beachcomber crock of last winter’s Betty Parsons: Sheer Energy – a misnomer so wide of the mark as to suggest a deeply cruel in-joke – DLWP greets mid-summer with To Improvise A Mountain: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Curates.

The title is far too long for word of mouth recommendation. But the good news is, it’s a banger. Respect to the newly appointed Head of Visual Arts, Ned McConnell, who whether from modesty, caution or strategy has brought this Hayward Gallery Touring show to the south coast.

Born after punk, in 1977, Yiadom-Boakye missed the memo about never trusting a hippie and refers in her curatorial notes to “poets, dreamers, thinkers and wanderers” and “that spirit of infinite knowledge and infinite knowing that poetry allows us” – which all seems a bit evasive, frankly. No matter, because among the 17 artists on display are obvious greats like Bonnard, Sickert and Vuillard, and exciting but less obviously substantial (because suddenly hip) figures including David Wojnarowicz, Peter Hujar and Yiadom-Boakye herself.

DEVELOPMENT OF A SENSIBILITY

It’s unapologetically Yiadom- Boakye’s show. Her own paintings are swanky, light-headed and even a little goofy, her charcoal drawings measured and coolly idealised, classically composed but ultimately, ethereal. Most intriguing is Oracular, a dark figure posed against an enormous black globe that might be a beach ball, a war memorial or a symbol of global transformation. It’s enigmatic in a way the lightweight portraits of earnest bespectacled male heads that is To Improvise A Mountain itself, is not: they look like newspaper illustrations. Conceptually the exhibition might seem slight: Artist Selects Stuff She Likes. But it’s a brave and engaging attempt to trace the development of a sensibility. Don’t expect narrative coherence or an encyclopaedic range: it’s as idiosyncratic as your own interior monologue – chaotic, playful, a work in progress. It offers above all an aspirational perspective, formally a little nostalgic, carefully avoiding the stylistic dead-end of the YBA dinosaurs who have doubtless dominated LY-B’s artistic life, instead cherry-picking outlier heroes and bunging in some treats and surprises.

Singular spots of suspended time abound. Kahlil Joseph’s short but dense film Wildcat pinpoints Black cowboy culture and exhibits both the grace of Eadweard Muybridge and the starkness of Monte Hellman. Wojnarowicz’s Untitled (Face in Dirt) is one of the late American artist’s incandescent enactments of calculated self-destruction. It’s a minor work and could be a film still from a student pastiche of Pasolini, but still burns like a white hot coal. Walter Sickert’s remarkable Self Portrait is simply alarming – a heartless brown study exuding Munch-like vigour, with a blotchy face the ferocious focus of which is the artist’s stony left eye. Pierre Bonnard’s Garden at Le Cannet provides a post-impressionistic oasis of volatile, energised colour and crackles with fiery life. Lisa Brice’s Parting at Dusk is a sullen nocturnal bright blue demon set against a glowing gold panel, a fierce, eyeless, disarming study in passive aggressive composure.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

There are some telling and provocative juxtapositions. Sickert’s The Blackbird of Paradise is beautifully brash, a luridly cackling creature who exudes the energy of an unexpected electric shock in the age of steam. Yiadom-Boakye’s Sunbird 3 subtly references it with quiet and delicate attention not to spittly character armour but to inner contemplative power. More powerful still and still palpably steaming – content warning: close attention is likely to scare the horses or spook your labradoodle – is Sex Series, Wojnarowicz’s photo-collages of reckless NYC cocksuckers, illuminated in stark negative relief like furtive crime scene contact prints from the Reaganite dark night of AIDS. These are placed alongside the photographic semi-sculptural staged studio portraits of Paul Mpagi Sepuya whose Studio with Gazing Balls formally reflects the queer American iconoclast’s brittle perspective (channelled rage against the ‘pre-invented man’) in an illuminating way, suggestive of a trajectory from the rough and ready techniques of a heedless radical underground to the slick production values of a soberly calculating mainstream.

There are a few lapses in judgment. Glenn Ligon’s Untitled (If I Can’t Have Love, I’ll Take Sunshine) is a pointless and yawn-inducing neon sign of the kind made utterly banal by Tracey Emin, among others – as trite as a Chinese fortune cookie, as redundant as a Future Mrs Tom Daley mug. The complex arrangement of photographs and sketches by Sickert, Hujar, Samuel Fosso, Toyin Ojih Odutola and Zoe Leonard which takes up most of one long wall is dominated by Wojnarowicz’s ‘Rimbaud in New York’ sequence: the artist wearing a badly made mask of the French poet/gun-runner. It’s juvenile stuff and the jumble of adjacent works don’t gel or offer any memorable insight. It feels miscalculated, mere filler. (Who’d ever have thought one might complain that in Bexhill-on-Sea there’d be too much David Wojnarowicz?)

AND UPSTAIRS …

In the upper gallery The Otolith Group (in truth just a couple) gives us The Third Part of the Third Measure, a two-screen video which repurposes the compositions of (African-American, gay, deceased, inspired) composer Julius Eastman. It’s meticulously shot, expertly performed and in the small cinema the music from two grand pianos sounds great. But it’s bullshit: opportunistic, self-important, an intellectually compromised exercise in reframing another artist’s work as an important piece of art in itself, part of a widespread and dubious tendency of bourgeoisification which throws into relief the entire exhibition.

Art about being art or art shows about art tend away from lived experience into a rarefied and abstract – sometimes cynical – realm, then into nothing. Carping aside, To Improvise A Mountain has a higher purpose and actually asks you to collude, to be attuned – and to be played. As you wander round you will make your own selection, will spot and/or fill in the gaps according to your own predilections, knowledge and tastes, your own ignorance and prejudices. And surely that’s the point. Don’t miss it.

Exhibitions run daily till Sunday 13 September 2026, 10am to 5pm. Free entry. De La Warr Pavilion, Marina, Bexhill On Sea

TOBY BULA-EDGE

Free cups of tea, and a retro feel, will be on offer at two exciting Tea and Telly pop up events on 8 and 22 August. They will take place at The British Tea Museum at 42 George Street, organised by the charity Screen Culture UK. Together they form the first stage of a process leading to the foundation, here in Hastings, of a permanent TV Museum.

As well as downing as many cups of tea as you can manage, you’ll be invited to suggest what you’d want to see in a permanent TV Museum. It will also be an opportunity to discuss your favourite – and least favourite – TV shows and moments.

Martin Dickie, project co-ordinator, considers it vital for Hastings to celebrate the town’s connection to TV. John Logie Baird “essentially developed the concept of television here, and transmitted the first static image from one room to another,” explains Dickie. “We need to celebrate that fact.”

Enthusiasts for the project already include Smack the Pony writer and comedian Doon Mackichan, Trix Worrell (the creator of Desmond’s), film actor Paul Freeman, and documentary filmmaker Jan Leman. The Tea and Telly events are also supported by the Electric Palace Cinema and Hastings Museum and Gallery.

A permanent museum would look at people’s relationship to TV, and its past and possible future. There are also plans that such a museum would host workshops for young people. Dickie says: “We’d love it to be a place for young people to come and build ties with the industry, to learn how to film, script-write, act – to give them some of the tools needed to move into the industry.”

At the moment, however, the focus is on gauging public interest, how it might look and how it might operate. “Tell us about your favourite TV shows, favourite personalities, things you love to hate about TV – and look at some test exhibits as well,” suggests Dickie.

You can do all that, while making use of the free cups of tea, on 8 and 22 August. For more details visit thebritishteamuseum.co.uk

There’s a good reason The Piper has been hosting Syd’s Last Stand – an annual tribute to Syd Barrett – since opening seven years ago. Syd Barrett, the most enigmatic figure in the British 60s psychedelic underground, played his last increasingly erratic show with Pink Floyd – the band he’d formed – at the Pavilion Ballroom on old Hastings Pier in 1968. By then, the band’s writer and charismatic frontman had become a disconnected figure in his own band, perched on the edge of the stage, randomly strumming a detuned guitar, empty eyes gazing from beneath a tumbling mass of corkscrew hair.

It’s exactly that unsettling rejection of pop idol status that’s become his enduring legacy. Syd Barrett transformed from a fading musician into something close to myth, a conduit for the dark unknowable realm of the human psyche. The consensus narrative blames drugs and calls it madness. But others ask: what is madness? What if it’s a dark visionary place, a lifting of the veil between subject experience and reality itself? We don’t know. And it’s precisely that not-knowing which captivates us.

The Floorboards Between Two Worlds

After The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (a title borrowed from The Wind in the Willows – the reason The Piper is called The Piper), Syd recorded two albums in 1970: Barrett and The Madcap Laughs. The latter is a stark, disjointed masterpiece with huge cult status. Its iconic cover shows Syd crouched on self-painted blue and orange floorboards in his London home: ghostly, both present and absent at the same time.

I bought the album in the late 80s, and remember being struck immediately by those floorboards. How often do you say that about floorboards? Unless you’re a carpenter or a family of termites: not very. But they felt iconic even then: the kind of detail you assume has been painted over, ripped up, or vanished into some collector’s vault as a novelty item. Like the desiccated head of Oliver Cromwell, which circulated as a curio in a leather drawstring bag through the 17th century – a whole other story of objects that shouldn’t persist, but do.

Except these floorboards are here. In Hastings. Rescued by Chris Barnett, The Piper’s owner, and two friends, they’ll be unveiled on 5 July as the centrepiece of this year’s Syd’s Last Stand—a kind of holy grail for psychonauts. The festival runs eight days, featuring talks from Syd’s ex-girlfriend Jenny Spires, live psych-rock from Ozric Tentacles, and luminaries like Bernard Butler. It promises to be extraordinary. You will not want to miss it.

For full details: thepiper.club

Hastings Castle will welcome The HandleBards to the West Hill on Friday 10 July for a riotous open-air production of Macbeth, marking a significant step in the Castle’s long-term ambition to become a regular destination for touring outdoor performance.

Amongst the ancient ruins, audiences are invited to bring blankets or low-backed chairs, and enjoy a playful Shakespearean production with a dramatic seascape backdrop. Perfect for an impassioned soliloquy or two!

The HandleBards are known for fast, funny, and environmentally conscious Shakespeare. Their 2026 Macbeth is performed by a 3-strong troupe touring the UK by electric van, bringing a high-octane, slightly chaotic version of the Scottish play to outdoor spaces across the country. Forget solemn tragedy: this Macbeth is full of mishaps, mayhem and mirth, suitable for all ages and apparitions.

For Hastings Castle, the performance is more than a one-off summer date. It represents the first full outdoor theatre production in the castle’s current events programme and, the team hopes, the beginning of many more. As the site continues to develop its role as an open-air events space, the arrival of The HandleBards points towards a future in which Hastings Castle becomes a distinctive stop for touring theatre companies, artists and audiences looking for performances in extraordinary places.

Ellie Westbrook, at Hastings Castle, said: “We are so excited to welcome the Handlebards to help us open this next chapter for Hastings Castle. Their work is dynamic, irreverent, interactive and does everything possible to bring theatre alive in the outdoors. We want to do more of this programming and see this event as a beautiful launchpad.”

The story may be familiar: three witches promise Macbeth the Scottish crown, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth make one spectacularly bad decision, and things rapidly unravel from there. Foul deeds are done, plots fall apart and mysterious spirits appear. In The HandleBards’ hands, however, Shakespeare’s darkest play becomes a gloriously unhinged evening of theatre.

Venue: Hastings Castle, Castle Hill Road, West Hill, Hastings, Friday 10 July, 7pm–9pm, doors open 6pm. Tickets: hastingscastle.org.uk/event/the-handlebards-do-macbeth. Audience advice: Outdoor performance. Bring a chair or blanket and clothing suitable for the weather. The Handlebards’ 2026 summer season includes Macbeth and As You Like It, with Macbeth touring from June to September 2026.

Hastings Castle will welcome The HandleBards to the West Hill on Friday 10 July for a riotous open-air production of Macbeth, marking a significant step in the Castle’s long-term ambition to become a regular destination for touring outdoor performance.

Amongst the ancient ruins, audiences are invited to bring blankets or low-backed chairs, and enjoy a playful Shakespearean production with a dramatic seascape backdrop. Perfect for an impassioned soliloquy or two!

The HandleBards are known for fast, funny, and environmentally conscious Shakespeare. Their 2026 Macbeth is performed by a 3-strong troupe touring the UK by electric van, bringing a high-octane, slightly chaotic version of the Scottish play to outdoor spaces across the country. Forget solemn tragedy: this Macbeth is full of mishaps, mayhem and mirth, suitable for all ages and apparitions.

For Hastings Castle, the performance is more than a one-off summer date. It represents the first full outdoor theatre production in the castle’s current events programme and, the team hopes, the beginning of many more. As the site continues to develop its role as an open-air events space, the arrival of The HandleBards points towards a future in which Hastings Castle becomes a distinctive stop for touring theatre companies, artists and audiences looking for performances in extraordinary places.

Ellie Westbrook, at Hastings Castle, said: “We are so excited to welcome the Handlebards to help us open this next chapter for Hastings Castle. Their work is dynamic, irreverent, interactive and does everything possible to bring theatre alive in the outdoors. We want to do more of this programming and see this event as a beautiful launchpad.”

The story may be familiar: three witches promise Macbeth the Scottish Crown, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth make one spectacularly bad decision, and things rapidly unravel from there. Foul deeds are done, plots fall apart and mysterious spirits appear. In The HandleBards’ hands, however, Shakespeare’s darkest play becomes a gloriously unhinged evening of theatre.

Venue: Hastings Castle, Castle Hill Road, West Hill, Hastings, Friday 10 July, 7pm–9pm, doors open 6pm. Tickets: https://www.handlebards.com/show/macbeth-hastings-castle/. Audience advice: Outdoor performance. Bring a chair or blanket and clothing suitable for the weather. The Handlebards’ 2026 summer season includes Macbeth and As You Like It, with Macbeth touring from June to September 2026.

Show takes place on 27 June next year. Early booking advised – the show is selling out everywhere

[Paul Wertico (drums), Enrico Pinna (guitar), Josephine Davies (tenor, soprano), Terry Pack (bass), Joss Peach (piano)]

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 Metheny band, and why his lifelong list of awards, recordings, professorships, books, and compositions is unrivalled. Hence his lead, in a rapidly-organised session on a normally quiet Monday night in Hastings, resulted in a superb one-off.

He flew in from Copenhagen, and along with acclaimed jazz/fusion guitarist Enrico Pinna, was joined by tenor/soprano maestra Josephine Davies, the Monk-like spare piano sounds of Joss Peach, and the mellow, unflinching bass of local luminary Terry Pack – these last three work together as (most of) Pack’s Full Circle. Nobody knew what was going to happen, Wertico announced, but that was jazz, experiencing the moment.

Under his unobtrusive but definitive direction, his elegant fills, faultless time, intuitive dynamics, and technical brilliance, that moment rapidly expanded into two exceptional sets. Beginning with a pensive line from Davies, the music morphed into an exploratory guitar/bass alternating riff session. A subsequent blues-based  number, in which Davies’ concentrated awareness and clarity absolutely shone, clearly drew the attention and response of Pinna and his guitar. Together the two emerged as a formidable duo lead – outstanding renditions of ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’ (we all hope for that, don’t we? said the woman on my left) and ‘Willow Weep For Me’ – favourites which, in lesser hands than these, could have sounded trite (overshadowed by so many immortal renditions) but instead settled in, moved forward, developed, and transfixed a wildly enthusiastic, capacity audience.

The second half progressed seamlessly through free-improv to ‘Open Water’ (from Full Circle’s latest CD) and finally into the modalities of ‘Impressions’, foregrounding not only Davies’ unique, windswept soprano inventions, but also Pinna’s incisive, casually brilliant work on a supreme electric guitar that he had custom made from a vintage Steinberger (a firm specialising in minimalist, headless instruments) and which Pinna finished himself with dye and wax, pickups and other hardware. A completely original evening in all directions then – but that’s jazz: experiencing the moment…

So Jazz Hastings has moved to Barnaby’s with a definite, defiant noise. The jazz musicians who have always played here because they love it now have a new outlet and potentially a double-sized audience. There are whispers that Barnaby’s may have to expand to the next-door building … 

Paul Wertico played at Barnaby’s Jazz Lounge on 15 June and went on the day after to The Jailhouse at Arundel. All a quick trip from Copenhagen where, until 27 June, he is taking part in a three-week tour with The Doky Brothers, whose eponymous gold-winning 1996 album featured The Brecker Brothers and Curtis Stigers. Further information: www.paulwertico.com, Barnaby’s at barnabyslounge.co.uk, and many tracks on Bandcamp https://tinyurl.com/Wertico 

With her husband a prisoner of war, Elzbeth was left to raise her children alone. Hunger and oppression were daily realities. As restrictions tightened in East Germany, the possibility of a life in the West became an increasingly compelling dream. Faced with difficult choices and significant risks, she began planning a journey that would ultimately take her toward freedom and a new future in England.

Reimagined by Hoeger’s daughter from family memories and historical records, You Can Go Now… But Leave The Butter conjures up an intimate portrait of an ordinary woman confronting extraordinary circumstances. Deeply personal and historically illuminating, the memoir provides a vivid account of daily life before, during and after the Nazi era, while exploring themes of resilience, courage, love and survival.

THE AUTHOR

Barbara Schultz grew up in East Germany and escaped with her mother and twin brother to England when she was eleven. She moved to the United States at fifty; got a degree at fifty-seven; was ordained a year later as a deacon in the Methodist Church, specialising in spiritual formation. She started writing seriously when almost seventy. She now lives in Hastings.

You Can Go Now … But Leave The Butter launch is on Saturday, 20 June, from 1pm to 3pm, at Crown House, 57 Marina, St Leonards. It is published by ByTheBook Press at £10.99 bythebook.press

Judy Parkinson established Drawing Life in 2015, offering free, regular, artist-led, creative sessions for people living with dementia and their carers. Now, a year after extending the reach of this innovative project to unpaid carers and those they care for (whatever their health needs), she aims to build on this success.

The art sessions work on many levels. They take place in art galleries – special destinations that set the tone. Some carers come on their own for some ‘me’ time, as do some cared-for people. When people start chatting, the art can take second place and the burden of caring is lifted, along with day-to-day worries: hospital appointments and broken nights.

“It is clear that carers benefit as much from our sessions as the people they care for,” says Judy. She explains that classes are an invaluable social lifeline for people who find themselves isolated due to their myriad responsibilities looking after a loved one. “The quiet concentration we observe every time is a sign that stress and anxiety are put aside for a few precious moments.”

The relaxed sessions take place every month at Hastings Contemporary and De La Warr Pavilion. One of a talented team of artists leads each class and brings different ideas and approaches, taking inspiration from gallery shows or sometimes from invited guests including local VIPs, musicians and models.

Parkinson emphasises that no artistic experience is necessary and all materials, tea and biscuits, are free of charge, as well as the chance to view the current exhibition.

M (18), with severe autism, is accompanied to the classes: His carer is enthusiastic: “We absolutely love the sessions, and I get respite in a way other activities don’t offer, he says. For whatever reason, M is much calmer at Drawing Life – which is testament to what the sessions provide.”

The classes have been a game changer for a wife and carer for Brian, who has dementia: “It’s nice not talking about what’s happening in your confused life. We had a great time, and afterwards we walked along the seafront and felt like human beings again.” Brian hasn’t missed a class all year.

Drawing Life works in collaboration with several organisations, including Care for the Carers, Association of Carers, Rother and Hastings Voluntary Action groups, but funding is vital for the work to continue. Class dates are on the Drawing Life website drawinglife.org To book places at the classes please contact Judy Parkinson, info@drawinglife.org 

TOBY BULA-EDGE

Shifting in style and sound over a two hour performance, Sonics’ Spin Cycle returned on Sunday 7 June for its fifth edition.

The experimental brainchild of James Weaver and William Bunch, Spin Cycle sees a group of musicians play over two hours, in 15-minute overlapping sets. From this, a variety of trios are created. And from that results an ever-shapeshifting performance.

The fifth edition brought together a diverse group of musicians, including: Kyle Macleod (The Defamation Project and Sons of Ugly), HIP’s very own Harry Hawkins (Halfneck), Kit and Toby Bula (The Brothers Bula and The Mystic Shed),James Weaver (The Warrior Squares and Sonics), Jason Williams, William Bunch (Sonics), a poet, also called William, who kicked off proceedings with a poem he wrote a couple of hours before. Others included Spin Cycle stalwart, Dana.

With a variety of players came a variety of instruments. For example, Kit Bula played a couple of chairs by hitting them on the floor. William Bunch scratched some records. Harry Hawkins plucked away on a small banjo. Jason Williams smacked the strings of an acoustic guitar.

All of this made what Bunch referred to as “unconventional music”. But he hastened to add “it’s still music.”

The performance was a success. Weaver added: “It was experimental music in its purest form – exploration and collaboration – while remaining playful and fun.”

The next Spin Cycle will be in September. More details to come.

The exhibition Doom Reimagined, at All Saints’ Church, offered various and vivid responses by local artists to the church’s own medieval Doom painting. Many of the reimaginings were attractive, all were thought-provoking. The opening evening offered an appropriate musical interlude with the Acappella Bellas, whose always high-quality singing was enhanced by the church acoustics, and a performance of Divine Discord, a charming chamber piece written for the occasion by local musician and composer Cai Ashara.

Pete Smith’s immediate response to ‘looking at the Doom painting properly’ was his sense of the builders and the artists who recovered and restored it when it had been erased with whitewash. He says: “Team work makes the dream work.” Philippa Bogle’s Ladder of Perfection engages with the medieval representation of the way to heaven, and is constructed from materials foraged in the churchyard and on the East Hill. This ladder is ‘fragile and unusable’: perfection is unattainable and demonstrates how, regulated by this model, one can never be ‘good enough.’

Few would now endorse the concept of a divine and absolute final judgement. So, in contemporary society, whose is the voice of doom? Amber Smith’s A Lifetime of Judgement uses medieval materials and methods to represent the ‘continuous scrutiny placed upon women during every stage of life’. The elegant woman’s head and headwear by Jane Fryers, a professional milliner, shows a judgement internalised, self-imposed by the model measuring herself against a perceived ideal.

Yet, as Ian Shillito’s Repent Plastics, with its skull constructed entirely of marine plastics found on Hastings beaches, would suggest, sometimes judgement is fair, and consequent repentance necessary.

A particularly intriguing piece is Julia Spicer’s Heavy Enough to Fall, Light Enough to Rise, referencing an experiment conducted in 1907 by physician Duncan MacDougall to establish the weight of the human soul. His conclusion, (methodologically extremely unsound) put the weight at 21.3 grams, contributing to the idea that souls have physical mass. Inspired by this, a relevant contemporary poem, and the tradition of All Saints as the Fishermen’s Church, Julia constructed seashell-like vessels containing ‘organic evocations of this purported 21grams’. offering ‘a quiet meditation on human frailty and transience’.

As the much-quoted line from The Go Between insists, “The past is a foreign country.” These creative reimaginings respect the integrity of that difference, but use it to produce works with strong contemporary resonance.

Doom Reimagined, curated by Ian Shillito and Ian Skelton, showed at All Saints’ Church, All Saints Road on 6/7 and 13/14 June 

ELIZABETH ALLEN

Most of the audience for Steve Furst’s show at the Stables admitted that they had never read Dickens’ Oliver Twist, but they did know Fagin, one of those characters who has a life somehow independent of the work in which he appears. Steve Furst is an actor, comedian, and song-and-dance man, and this performance, complete with the music hall device of direct addresses to the audience, was highly entertaining.

Yet, as I only gradually recognised, it was a lecture heavy with information but lightly presented. We examined the significance of the fact that in the earlier sections of the novel Dickens refers to him almost exclusively as ‘The Jew’ rather than by name. We heard how the author was rebuked for this and later sought to make amends by offering, in Our Mutual Friend, the gentle, near-saintly character of Jewish moneylender Mr Riah. We recognised the way in which both Oliver Twist and Cruikshank’s famous illustrations both constructed and reinforced the stereotype of the greedy and evil Jew.

And Fagin, of course, had a considerable afterlife in the twentieth century through Lionel Bart’s immortally successful Oliver! Bart himself was born Lionel Begleiter, the youngest of seven children of a Jewish family who escaped from the pogroms in Ukraine to settle finally in Stepney. His father worked, in a garden shed, as a tailor. It may have been ‘natural’, therefore, for Bart to modify the character of Fagin to make him into a lovable rogue, a father figure with a questioning conscience. “I’m re-viewing the situation,” he tells the audience (and Furst’s performance of the song was impeccable) “If you want to eat you’ve got to earn a bob/Is it such a humiliation/For a robber to perform an honest job?” Or, the character modification is just as likely to have been a stroke of genius, something that he knew would make splendid theatre. Bart was recognised by Andrew Lloyd Webber as “the father of the British musical”, writing at the time song after successful song, collaborating with, and writing for, other entertainment legends who had also transcended early London working-class poverty – Anthony Newley,Tommy Steele, Adam Faith.

Furst’s performance was delivered with such energy and engagement that we did not simply watch and learn, but experienced the vitality of the character, who leapt off the page and out of the story into different ages and aspects of cultural history.

Dickens was himself a man of the theatre, declaring an ambition to be a professional actor and having several plays produced on the public stage. His highly dramatic readings of scenes from his novels drew massive crowds. He would surely have enjoyed this performance, its skilled and irresistible relationship with the audience, and its mix of the serious and the playful.