Archives for Theatre
Wildfell Hall: Still Relevant
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…
Birnam Wood Comes to West Hill
Family-friendly, funny Shakespeare comes to Hastings Castle Hastings Castle will welcome The HandleBards to the West Hill on Friday 10 July for a riotous open-air production of Macbeth, marking a…
Not Birnam Wood But Hastings Castle: The Scottish Play
Family-friendly, funny Shakespeare comes to Hastings Castle on the West Hill Hastings Castle will welcome The HandleBards to the West Hill on Friday 10 July for a riotous open-air production…
Tickets on sale for Alfie Moore – next year!
If you are a fan of his Radio 4 programme It's a Fair Cop, now in its 9th series, join Alfie Moore, 6the former police sergeant turned stand-up comedian from…
Two Faces of Fagin
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…
Pizza and Plays
Spun Glass Theatre launches Pizza and Plays, an incredible new writing project backed by Arts Council England, and in partnership with Hastings Museum, set to open at home venue Stade…
Cage Fighting
An interview with local actor and Mixed Martial Arts specialist Francis Saunders Q: Francis, you’ve had a remarkable journey. How would you describe your life in one sentence? A: A…
A Song as Lovely as a Tree
Bev Lee Harling is a disarmingly innocent-looking singer, songwriter, musician and actor with a lightness and naturalness to her performances which belie the care, originality, and thought with which they…
Good Grief Festival:Joy in Sorrow
VICTORIA KINGHAM Over the bank holiday weekend an unusual festival took place. Curated and arranged by the development education centre (DEC) 18 Hours, and called Good Grief: A Festival of…
Departure Lounge: A Double Elle Theatre Production
Writer/performers Lucy Pappas and Lisa Harmer have both worked professionally with the bereaved and experienced their own personal grief, inspiring them to write this one-act drama. They are delighted to…
Comedy Festival
Hastings Comedy Festival returns on 1 June for its 11th year. The week-long celebration of live comedy kicks off at The Printworks and The St Leonard, with shows from Lara Ricote, Tez…
Hot Tap Flows Creatively On
There are now more details on Dean Stalham’s progress from the Hot Tap Theatre to his new venture, Pen to Paper Productions. This new project connects creative talent with real…
Sweet Georgia
Last year we were privileged to see the eminent Rustavi choir from Georgia, who filled the Henry Ward Hall with their powerful voices and love of song. Now it’s the…
Top Girls: Coercion, Conflict, Desperation
ELIZABETH ALLEN Top Girls is a play of fast and furious talk. The characters do not merely argue and contradict, they talk over each other, each pushing her own narrative,…
Ripping Yarns
VICTORIA KINGHAM French’s bar in Robertson Street is all exposed brick, chandeliers and cocktails, offering an intimate atmosphere. A couple of weeks ago that atmosphere was augmented by a literary…
Conflict and Contemplation: A Manufactured Thrill and Quiet Promise
VICTORIA KINGHAM The name of Henry Normal is well-known to audiences that frequent literature festivals, Radio 4, and late-night TV comedy. Normal is also responsible for a raft of quality…
Girls Still on Top
ELIZABETH ALLEN Top Girls is an extraordinary play by an extraordinary playwright. Caryl Churchill has been called Britain’s “most brilliant living playwright” and this play “hilarious, ground-breaking, gritty”. Characteristic of…
Six Characters in Search of a Meaning
VICTORIA KINGHAM On 13 April, there was a rehearsed reading of Lindsay Jayne’s play A spectacular Interview in Studio 27, the White Rock Theatre’s fringe venue. This was quite a feat…
The Sign Of Four, with Boots and Coconuts
VERA BELL Studio 27 in the White Rock seems rapidly to be gaining ground as a Hastings fringe venue for experimental theatre. Two days after the absurdist A Spectacular Interview…
General Medical Emergency Ward 10
Dyad Productions, known mainly for historical plays (That Knave, Raleigh, I, Elizabeth, A Room of One’s Own) have staged a brand new theatre collaboration with Company Gavin Robertson (General Medical…
Palmerama Comedy Anniversary
RUBY LAMBERT The Palmerama comedy showcase recently celebrated its third anniversary by bringing together seven distinct voices for an evening of laughter. Each comedian delivered their own unique act. The…
Prizewinning Play by Local Author
VERA BELL Glyn Carter is a local playwright and novelist, whose play Carabiners will have its world premiere at Hastings’ Stables Theatre from 14 to 18 April. Courtesy of Glyn…
Stables Doors Open for Hot Tap
VICTORIA KINGHAM Dean Stalham’s Hot Tap Theatre year at St Andrews Mews is now complete, and, having had a number of great theatre nights, he is moving on to a…
Thrill and a Promise
A joint book launch from local performance poets Henry Normal and Tim Barlow was met with great enthusiasm by a sell-out audience of 70 at Hastings Library last Thursday. Henry,…
Masculine Fear of Feminine Power – Macbeth
In this classic tale of greed and guilt, Flabbergast’s Macbeth fuses a rigorous and respectful approach to text and storytelling to bring a magical, lucid interpretation of Shakespeare’s blood-soaked tragedy to…
At Last – Sherlock Holmes Comes to Hastings
SAM WESTERBY Doctor Who time lord Colin Baker and The Archers performer Terry Molloy star in the Sherlock Holmes radio play The Sign of Four at White Rock Theatre on April…
Another Spectacular Interview
In April there will be a rehearsed public reading of Lindsay Jayne’s absurdist debut play, A Spectacular Interview. The play is a critical, comical send-up of the ‘spectacularly’ appalling mess…
Arnold Rimmer Comes to Comic Con
The White Rock Theatre has announced that Chris Barrie (Rimmer from Red Dwarf – those were the days)is the first confirmed celebrity guest for this year’s Hastings Comic Con, which returns…
Jack and the Beanstalk
FIONA MCGARRY My eight-year-old granddaughter and I went to Jack and the Beanstalk at The White Rock Theatre last Thursday. We arrived slightly frazzled (with Grandpa in tow) straight from the…
A Dickens Christmas
JOHN KNOWLES A (One Man) Christmas Carol, presented by Jud Charlton and directed by Paolo Serra, will show at the Kino Teatr on 11 December, the Hot Tap Theatre in…
A Krapp Life
JOHN COLE Academy Award Director nominee Stockard Channing (remember Grease?) brings her production of Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape to the Kino Theatre on 13 November. The monologue is a journey…
The Ellen Terry Theatre Haunts The Stables
ELIZABETH ALLEN Following their recent witty and joyful production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Ellen Terry Barn Theatre company returns to the Stables with an altogether darker prospect. This…
Power and Gender Shifts at The Stables
ELIZABETH ALLEN A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a text rich in possible interpretations. In Peter Brook’s radical 1970’s production, the traditional charming forest and cute fairies disappeared, replaced by a…
Tosca Becomes of Age
ELIZABETH ALLEN With its series Becoming - the first, Becoming Carmen, followed last year by Becoming Tosca - Prologue Opera, describing itself as “part theatre, part opera company”, has set…
The Healing Properties of the Sea
Patrick Kealey is here in conversation with Bev Lee Harling about the latest staging of her one-woman show, Ploughing the Salt Sea, at The Stables. Peter Mould Why should people…
The White Rock Stands Firm
HANNAH LOUISE SAMPSON Since taking over management of The White Rock eighteen months ago, Guildhall Trust has instigated a revival at the White Rock Theatre, steering the nearly century-old venue…
Sleepwalk: the Dream of Lady Macbeth
In 2023/24 an enterprising St Leonards-based collective around the local band Afrit Nebula had a sellout success at the Kino-Teatr and Fabrica (Brighton) with their multi-media live show The Spirit…
Lammermoor, the Inside Story
VICTORIA KINGHAM Lucia di Lammermoor, one of Donizetti’s most famous operas, is ultimately based on a ‘true’ story. Written in 1835, the libretto was inspired by Sir Walter Scott’s historical…
Hats Off to the Hot Tap
VICTORIA KINGHAM It has to be said that in the three months since we last reported on Dean Stalham’s new little theatre Top Hat (oops, sorry, Hot Tap) it has…
Revolution, Romance, Reinvention: Becoming Tosca
Prologue Opera, an ambitious new opera-theatre company based in Hastings and committed to innovation and audience engagement, presents Becoming Tosca. Extending audiences’ relationship with Puccini’s Tosca, the show provides new…