Archives for Culture - Page 2
Raining, Cats and Dogs
You may have wondered at the inspiration behind our long-running, consistently whimsical comic strip and about its creator. The real Lola and Bill are gratified to appear in these august…
Madagascar to Ethiopia – Hanitra and Haymanot
JUDE MONTAGUE AND VICTORIA KINGHAM Two extraordinary female African musicians, Hanitra Ranaivo from Madagascar and Haymanot Tesfa from Ethiopia, visit Hastings this summer. Hanitra Ranaivo and Jean-Marc Bontemps at the…
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…
Mozart and Movement
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…
John Donaldson New CD Release
VICTORIA KINGHAM Due to be released in August is an album written entirely by pianist John Donaldson, founder of Jazz Hastings. We Were Together, I Forget the Rest, dedicated to…
Shouting for Bexhill
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…
Perello Duoat the Beacon
Perello, the Liverpool-based guitar and vibes duo who enchanted their Kino-Teatr audience last summer, are back in Hastings on 7 August – this time at The Beacon. The Perello Duo:…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: Establishment and Fascism
If We Tolerate This By Daniel TrillingPublished by Picador, 2026, rrp £ BY TIM BARTON This timely book is subtitled ‘How the British establishment made the Far Right respectable’. A…
Poetry Corner: Queen Victoria’s Hat
TIM BARLOW One day I’ll climb the Empire State with you To fly a flag and go down on one knee But just for now our love is clandestine This…
Town Plans and Money Plans
The 410 pages of Hastings Council’s Draft Local Plan on the future of the town till 2041 attracted many criticisms earlier this year, and the Council meeting on 23 September…
Multilayered Meanings in Iranian Art
MARK SPELMAN on his new exhibition at Project 78 I first recall seeing what you could broadly call ‘Persian Miniatures’ when I was installing a show in Dammam, KSA. I…
Jamboranja Jamboram
ED BOXALL 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.…
Hastings writers contribute to anti-Trump anthology
‘Art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth’: words uttered by John F. Kennedy in 1963. TDS 2026 is an anthology of poetry and art…
BOO – Love, Loss, and Redemption
VICTORIA KINGHAM 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…
Coven Club at the Carlisle: Female-Led Live Rock Music Night Returns
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…
Hastings Arts Forum: Two Seaside Exhibitions
Arts Forum at 20 Marine Court has been showing consistently good-quality art here since 2006, and this summer’s shows are no exception. Bill Greenhead, IceScream GREENHEAD’S GULLS Local Hastings artist…
From the Ecclesiastical to the Educational
VICTORIA KINGHAM Joseph Stannard is an enthusiast. He loves music and he loves film. When he isn’t editing record reviews in a music journal, he is exploring the paranormal. “I’ve…
Paul Joy: A Boxer Who Went to Sea
JOHN COLE The name Paul Joy is well known in Hastings, especially in the Old Town. Paul has been a fisherman here for most of his adult life and he…
Greenhead’s Seagulls at Arts Forum
Local Hastings artist Bill Greenhead invites you into the mind of a seagull. Imagine a universe where Earth is not dominated by humans, but by avian creatures that call themselves…
Love Supreme – Musica Feminina
Rawicz and Spalding – Amazons at the Festival VICTORIA KINGHAM The Love Supreme jazz festival takes place this weekend at Glynde Place, near Lewes. Tickets are still selling but it…
Tea Museum Hosts Telly Event
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…
Book Festival and Competitions
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.…
Everywhere At Once Festival
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…
A Meander Through an Artist’s Mind
DAVID MILTON 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…
Eight Days of Syd’s Last Stand
NICK TUCKER 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…
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…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: Challenging the Hope Deficit
Making A MovementBy Barney CullumPublished by Acropolis, 2023, rrp £ BY TIM BARTON Those paying attention to world affairs today know there is something of a ‘hope’ deficit. It is…
Poetry Corner: writing my will on the toilet
PETE DONOHUE i’m writing my will on the toilet drinking strong coffee laden with whiskey waiting for that familiar movement of mind & bowels when i’ll think about what i…
Could a Norman Horse Leap from a Longboat?
Hastings Borough council have declared that this is the Year of the Normans (1,000 years since the birth of William the Conqueror) for which there will be events across Hastings…
Not Birnam Wood But Hastings Castle: The Scottish Play
Family-friendly, funny Shakespeare comes to Hastings Castle on the West Hill Hastings Castle will welcome The HandleBards to the West Hill on Friday 10 July for a riotous open-air production…
Tickets on sale for Alfie Moore – next year!
If you are a fan of his Radio 4 programme It's a Fair Cop, now in its 9th series, join Alfie Moore, 6the former police sergeant turned stand-up comedian from…
Wertico One-off at Jazz Hastings
Soft-spoken and unassuming, Paul Wertico becomes, behind his kit, a force to reckon with. You can hear why he remained for many years the lynchpin of the Pat…
Small Plates Food Festival Returns to St. Leonards
The highly-anticipated Small Plates Food Festival is officially returning to St Leonards this summer on Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 June. Following previous success, the celebration of local flavours expands…
In from the Cold
HAYDON LUKE & PAUL DRAPER of the Fairlight History Group explore the mystery of the Fairlight Memorial to the dead of two world wars Andrew Gill, bugler, Royal British Legion…
Weight of the Soul
ELIZABETH ALLEN 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…
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…
Escape from Oppression: Book Launch
You Can Go Now…But Leave The Butter is a powerful account of the life of Elzbeth Hoeger, a woman whose experiences spanned some of the most turbulent decades in German…
Art for Carers and Cared-for
Drawing Life will be able to continue delivering art classes for carers and those they care for until mid 2027 thanks to funding from The National Lottery Community Fund. Judy…
Unconventional…but Still Music
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…
Liberty In Sound
HARRY HAWKINS The Henry Ward Hall on Robertson Street is bringing a massive musical landmark to town, and in the process raising money for local charity The Refugee Buddy Project.…