Archives for Spotlight - Page 2
Bexhill Art Weekender
A special weekend returns for 2026: a Town-Wide Celebration of Art, Performance, Film and Community Bexhill Art Weekender returns on Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 August 2026, featuring artists’ open…
Not Lost but Gone Before
KENT BARKER There is endless fascination in using real historical figures as the inspiration for works of fiction. Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell and Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet are just two distinguished…
Singing in the Rubble
FELICITY LAURENCE As a music educator, I have been honoured to help a little from afar in the current work of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music (ESNCM), which…
Art and Craft in Priory Meadow
A new initiative, Mosaic Malarky, is expanding access to arts and community creativity in Hastings, bringing local people together through hands-on workshops, inclusive making sessions and event-led activities at Hypha…
Wertico One-off at Jazz Hastings
VICTORIA KINGHAM Soft-spoken and unassuming, Paul Wertico becomes, behind his kit, a force to reckon with. You can hear why he remained for many years the lynchpin of the Pat…
Classical Music this weekend
Mozart and Chausson at Christ Church St Leonards Max Baillie’s St Leonards Concerts series hosts this weekend The Kleio Quartet, rising stars in the music world here and abroad. Since their formation in…
BLAST Reopens as The Thonett Gallery
The art gallery run by Markus and Tessa Thonett, hitherto called ‘BLAST’ has now changed its name to the more literally descriptive Thonett Gallery, which they feel is more representative…
St Leonards Festival Returns
TOBY BULA-EDGE Warrior Square Gardens will come alive on 11 July from with the annual St Leonards Festival and Community Parade along the seafront at It promises to be an energetic and…
Old Town Boating Lake Makeover
PAUL MCLAUGHLIN The Old Town Boating Lake has been a popular feature of Hastings seafront for almost a hundred years. Opened in 1933 to plans drawn up by Borough Engineer…
Life, Love, Lyrics
JUDE MONTAGUE talks to fellow-songwriter Anna Page Some artists have a powerful and positive impact on Hastings culture even though the spotlight has not fallen on their profile. One of…
Project Art Works Returns to Comic Con
Comic Con is returning to Hastings, and this year you will also meet there Daniel Wells, Ellen Prebble, and Lucy Walker. Daniel and Lucy will be presenting works in progress…
Year of the Normans
FIONA MCGARRY To commemorate the 1,000th anniversary of the birth of William the Conqueror, there will be events across Hastings and the rest of the country from this summer into…
Refugee Week Food Festival: Couragein Practice
A key aspect of this year’s Refugee Week programme is the Food Festival. Between 13 and 21 June, local restaurants, cafés and safe havens across Hastings and surrounding areas are…
Walking on Water: A Celebration of Water, Wildlife and Community
FIONA MCGARRY Walking on Water is a community celebration and guided waterways tour involving various local groups such as the Care for Creation, Clean Water Action (CWAG), Standing Up 4…
Refugee Week Celebrates Courage Across Hastings & Bexhill
Refugee Week 2026 takes place from 15 to 21 June, bringing communities together across Hastings, Rother, and Wealden under this year’s national theme: Courage Refugee Week 2026 will spotlight the…
An Exhilarated Octogenarian
Lindsay Jayne on life, survival, and bad grammar FIONA POWERS Lindsay Jayne is exhilarated by the knowledge that, as a newbie octogenarian (“How did that happen so quickly?!”), she has…
Get it Together & Dance
For the end of May Bank holiday, the world of dance music is showcased and brought across the town by Let’s Get It Together Festival, featuring 30 DJs playing across…
The Phoenix of Gaza
A remarkable film, the winner of numerous awards at film festivals, including the London Independent Film Awards and the Edinburgh Film Awards, will soon be screened in Hastings. 'The Phoenix…
Hastings, Take the Mic!
SARAH MILNE A fresh burst of comic energy is heading for Hastings as Laugh-Able Comedy Cavalcade: Hastings Edition rolls into town. This taster workshop will offer an exciting introduction to…
Guided Walk to the Amsterdam
For over two hundred years, during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, much of the world’s international trade was carried out by great sailing vessels, known as East Indiamen. These…
The Hastings Project Opens Up
HARRY HAWKINS On a balmy (well, balmy for March) afternoon, a new watering hole for St Leonards opened its doors for the first time. It’s 5pm and the pub is full (I’m…
Foxtrot Echo: ComfortablyOut of Stepwith the World
NICK TUCKER Less than three minutes into my interview with the roguish, counter-culture iconoclast, Foxtrot Echo, I realise that the word ‘interview’ isn’t going to contain what is clearly going…
The Night Swimmer novel on Hastings: the poetry of the tide
JOSHUA GEER In The Night Swimmer, Simon J Houlton casts his debut novel into the restless dark and grit of the Hastings coastline, a place he knows not simply as…
Celebrate Heritage at the Edith Festival
HANNAH-LOUISE SAMPSON The Edith Festival, a vibrant highlight of this year’s Hastings Week, promises an evening where ancient legend meets modern fun with a generous dash of Anglo-Saxon spirit. Organised…
Guitar Virtuoso Enchants at the Kino-Teatr
SUSAN DEMUTH The Kino-Teatr’s popular Coffee Concert series served up a special treat for local music lovers when classical guitar virtuoso Eleanor Kelly took to the stage. Eleanor Kelly at…
Horizon at The New French’s
KATE SHAW I was excited to see what Seb Hipperson and his team had done to the old French’s wine bar. So when I was invited to DJ there by…
Roland Jarvis, Polymath
Roland Jarvis was a multi-talented printmaker, painter, sculptor, horologist, film maker and engineer who hosted many exhibitions from his Hastings Old Town studio in Tackleway (Tackleway Hall) until his death in 2016.…
Iago Banet Returns to Kino
Described as “a master of the guitar” by Sean Rafferty, BBC Radio 3 In Tune; as “nothing short of phenomenal” in a recent review; and as a “highly recommended artist”…
Braga, Portugal, and Brazil
JUDE MONTAGUE and VICTORIA KINGHAM The association between Brazil and Portugal dates back to the 16th century, when Brazil was colonised for its plentiful trees (Brazilwood), then later used for…
Confessional and Understated: Hayley Savage
The new, eponymous album by Hayley Savage is a collection of songs written between 2011 and 2021. Due for release on 11 April, it’s a minimalist and organic mixture of…
Boxing Sisters
Yazidi women are boxing their way back to health. Local radio producer Jodie Taylor has produced a documentary that has just come out on BBC World Service. Jodie is a…
Meet Men’s Shed at the Park
The Hastings and St Leonards Men’s Shed will be running a stall at a wood-themed market hosted by the Alexandra Park Greenhouse to celebrate World Wood Day on 22 March.…
International Women’s Day Festival at the OB promises to be a roaring success
CHRIS CONNELLEY Hear Me Roar 2025 is a day-long community festival celebrating International Women’s Day and the many inspiring women and women-led organisations in our town. Erica SmithKin Choir at…
Hastings International Piano hosts Hough
Hastings International Piano is delighted to announce that its patron, the internationally-renowned concert pianist Sir Stephen Hough, will give a fundraising recital in support of the organisation at Fairlight Hall…
A Cockroach in The Stables
VICTORIA KINGHAM That most engaging of local actors, Patrick Kealey, will finally perform his action-packed version of Archy and Mehitabel to The Stables Theatre on 26 February. Some of you…
Poetry, punk, plays
Between the couple of miles that constitute downtown Hastings and St Leonards, it isn’t just that there are a great number of talented people joyfully making art and writing poems,…
XED Le Head: After tattooing, what?
VICTORIA KINGHAM Imagine an extraordinary body of work by a dedicated tattooist, essentially an artist who, unable to use a tattoo marker, turned to something completely different. Ruby’s Rooms on…
Tea Party with Angels, Demons & Other Friends
Sussex based artist ElĪna Rudzīte brings her eclectic range of paintings and sculpture to Hastings in a special exhibition that runs throughout the month of March, entitled Tea party with…
Sounds of Creativity
Hastings International Piano is launching Sounds Of Creativity for 2025: a free workshop series combining live classical piano with guided creative art sessions. The workshops have been designed to harness…
Poet Town
OLI SPLEEN Hastings poets are coming together to celebrate 200 years of poetry in our town. Poet Town: The Poets & Poetry of Hastings & Thereabouts is in production, edited…