Her story, for the festival, was much more immediate. She was writing it at the same time as grieving the loss of her father – “so I was really writing through it” she explains. She continues “I was trying to get to the heart of our relationship, and what it means when you almost start saying goodbye to somebody before they’ve left, as they change.”

“Then,” she adds, “there’s the element of the tree”, which was in her mind the whole time she was developing the performance. It is, indeed, an inspired idea. The tree at the centre of the performance was designed by “total Hastings treasure” sculptor Leigh Dyer. Harling’s father owned and worked in a foundry on IvyHouse Lane, and Dyer’s sculptures are made in metal, so he was often at the foundry. The lovely boat that rises from the shingle on the beach, the stainless steel octopuses and snakes in George Street at Butler’s Gap holding the chess pieces, and the gates by the Print Works, are all his work.

TREE OF A LIFE

He planned the shimmering tree round a contour, making an initial drawing that followed Harling’s shape, holding her violin. Across and between its main branches, different instruments were placed – keyboards, strings that could be bowed. All wonderfully integrated so that she could use them to accompany herself in song, or at various places in the narrative, or put her arms round it. “He knew my dad, he absolutely understood him, so he was able to understand my vision [for the tree] from a personal point of view.”

Together with her partner, exceptional and versatile musician Frank Moon, and Dyer’s sculpture, Harling has succeeded in creating, around the tree, a compelling narrative that interweaves her own recollections of the last few months of her father’s life, and re-imagines his own reminiscences, in both song and performance. There’s a particularly poignant scene where she (or perhaps her mother) dances with him – represented by an empty suit jacket – and there are songs that he knew, songs that he liked, and stories of his former life in the East End of London.

I wondered whether this work fitted into a particular theatrical genre. She works with a coach, Morris (Mo) Cohen, whose specialism is autobiographical theatre. But she doesn’t feel that this label covers the show as a whole. It doesn’t. It’s a truly composite work of art – the superior music, the visual direction, the narrative, the tree as reflection of herself, the undeniable authenticity, all make for something beyond categorisation, indefinably a world in itself.

MUSICAL ROOTS

Because Bev Lee Harling is so integrally a part of the Hastings music scene it’s perhaps less recognised how successful she has been nationally as a touring musician. Further, that she has made a whole series of impeccably produced and quite beautiful albums and EPs, beginning with Impossible Human in 2006. Or that she has a degree in jazz. Also, she grew up in the Music Centre system here in Hastings, when “at the time, it was absolutely thriving. Anyone could learn an instrument, and you could go to orchestras and go on tours.” There was a centre on Croft Road where the East Sussex Music Service would arrange for promising students to play with the Philharmonic Orchestra, and for them to travel to play in the Albert Hall.

There was no musical tradition in her family, but for her own inspiration she credits her much older sister, who begged for a violin when quite young. Bev could then grow up hearing music at home, with her sister sometimes teaching her things on the piano. She studied classical music but had the feeling that she “wasn’t quite classical enough.” She also didn’t think, after completing her university course, that she was quite a jazz musician either. Having played the violin since she was five, I suspect she manages to be both with ease, but her vocal style and her instrumental expertise and her ability to tell stories through music, make her unique.

She is quick to praise everyone involved: Frank Moon for the sound design, Jonathan Richardson for the lighting, Mae Dewsbery for production support, Mo Cohen for the coaching, Leigh Dyer for the tree, and 18 Hours for the Good Grief Festival and their support, plus St John’s Church, The Stables, and the Arts Council for financial help.

“We all experience grief in some way or another,” so with Hey Good Lookin’ she has succeeded in producing, from the stage, an environment which the audience can all understand. “We all have stories, and we all have the potential to be able to share these stories with other people, to have a meaningful connection … every time I do one of these shows, so many people want to talk to me afterwards, and they have incredible stories, and maybe that’s the only time they get to share them.” Somehow her presentation gives people permission to respond: a rare gift.

Bev Lee Harling performed Hey Good Lookin’ at St John’s Church Hall, Brittany Road, St Leonards on Saturday 23 May. Another performance is scheduled for the annual Hastings Storytelling Festival in October at The Stables Theatre, date to be confirmed. 

Hastings Traditional Jack in the Green is delighted to have been awarded £30,000 through Arts Council National Lottery Project Grants. This will cover many of the costs of staging the event in 2026, allow them to build upon their community activities and to share traditional May Day and Sussex customs widely with local people.

The local celebration is well-loved and enjoyed by around 20,000 locals and visitors each year. Over the May Day weekend there is a full programme of events, talks, workshops and performances, many of which are free.

This year, along with the usual singarounds, dances, concerts and family friendly workshops, the Jack in the Green will be holding its first ever family ceilidh, and a special Sunday event with a focus on processional giants. It will also feature special quieter, SEND sessions.

Thanks to the funding, preparations for the event can take place in collaboration with four schools, three libraries, several Scouts groups and many community groups such as the White Rock Youth Theatre, the Fellowship of St Nicholas, Aspens, Playing the Race Card, and the Ukrainian Monday group and Saturday school. They will be running workshops on ceilidh and morris dancing, traditional crafts, costume making and interactive storytelling.

Chair Keith Leech says: “We’re delighted with this award… [and] are really pleased that the importance of this significant traditional community event has been recognised. Funding is always an issue, but this means we are able to keep it going another year.”

For more information, please contact: lorna.c@hastingstraditionaljackinthegreen.co.uk. General information on Jack in the Green, how to become involved as a volunteer: hastingstraditionaljackinthegreen.co.uk 

Audiences in the South East will recognise Barefoot Opera’s signature style that fuses outstanding classical singing and dynamic physical theatre with community participation to create an accessible show for a broad audience to enjoy.

Led by an international cast of professional singers, including Beren Fidan in the lead role, choirs from local colleges and communities help to introduce the first episode of the story, creating a unique form of audience participation that expands the experience of the opera for both cast and audience.

Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor is a cousin to Romeo and Juliet: a bitter family feud is the background to Lucia’s doomed love affair as her personal identity is shattered by coercion, power and toxic masculinity. 

Jenny Miller, founder of Barefoot Opera, says: “Our director, Rosie Catt, frames this story within the problems of today’s young people, ensuring empathy with Lucia’s struggles to find mental resilience in a world without anchors. Rosie links this richly melodic 19th century romantic opera with current issues of mental health and well-being. Our preparation has included training with outstanding Hastings based company Soundcastle, a community music hub, and we are truly happy to be able to bring this work to new audiences in our expanded tour.”

“In this version of Lucia di Lammermoor there is an immediate connection between singers, instrumentalists and audience. We replenish our communal experience of live performance. So in this performance bel canto, the art of great singing, meets our bold vision for a new form of opera. “

For further details and tickets, visit www.barefootopera.com Lucia De Lammermoor will be performed at St John the Evangelist, Brittany Road, on 4 September and 4 October. For further dates see barefootopera.com/shop

To celebrate the anniversary, the company commissioned local artist Joseph Williams of Bamboology to create a Spun Glass Canopy for the hall. The structure brings shape to the space and inspires the imaginations of the audience in a kaleidoscope of technicolour.

Co-Creative Directors Ross Drury and Dan Hutton have also announced that Spun Glass Theatre will be creating and presenting a brand new theatre show this summer, Pebble Road and the Pond People.

The Arts Council-funded project takes inspiration from research into freshwater biodiversity in local ponds and rivers and will see the space transformed and theatricalised. The show is aimed at ages 5+, with an Early Years installation alongside: A Pond Picnic, inviting audiences aged 0-4 to explore and play in a freshwater paradise.

“We are delighted to continue bringing the magic of live performance to Stade Hall,” say Ross and Dan, “making it an open and affordable theatre for everyone.”

2023 Coastal Currents is upon us and this year we have done it entirely without Arts Council funding! First, then, thanks must go out to our biggest supporters: Love Hastings, blackShed Gallery, East Sussex College, and all the other lovely advertisers and Open Studios participants who have helped make this happen.

Tina Morris, our Director, who first got involved way back in 2011 and has now kept the Festival afloat since Hastings Council funding ended in 2017, says:

“Truly a festival of the town in 2023, we are so thankful to still be here through pure community support. But this is unsustainable, so we also know we have to look at other ways to keep this festival alive, including making donations to our crucial crowdfunder at gofundme.com/coastal-currents-audiotrope-2023. We want to see this festival return year after year as it is vital to supporting the local creative economy. I will keep putting in my energy and passion but you all need to as well!”

Tina Morris, Co-Chair of 1066 Music City (for her creation of community music project Audiotrope) alongside Hannah Deeble from Fat Tuesday, incorporated all of these elements into the Opening Party for the Festival this year. This free celebration of music and art welcomed everyone last Friday. This was a great chance to hear some fantastic local live music as well as doing some networking, and the back room of The Pig was heaving! The line-up included Lucas the Peaceful Poet, Message from the Ravens, Chimer (acoustic), Reshad & Friends, Bad Pedestrian, Fluorescent and, just back from supporting Greentea Peng, we have Kid Cruise headlining.

An unmissable show is the launch of Folde at the Observer Building on Cambridge Road, an exhibition showing contemporary works exploring clay and curated by Rowan Corkill and including a host of incredible local artists including Martin Brockman, Rosalind Farem, Carla Wright and more. This launches on Friday 8 September from 6pm, and the show itself runs from 7 – 11 September, so get it in your diary quick.

Open Studios was last weekend and this weekend (9-10 September) across the region. We have an interactive map on our website at coastalcurrents.org.uk or you can pick up one of our aubergine and neon brochures found in most galleries and independent shops. Support local by visiting the studios, buying a piece, commissioning something you’ve always wanted or even just engaging with the artist themselves. Our creative economy needs you and Coastal Currents exists to celebrate this unique coast’s creativity!

Watch out for other street level interventions especially the Coastal Currents supported ESRA exhibition which will appear on Hastings streets in the coming weeks. ESRA does valuable work locally, supporting recovering from addiction and more can be seen here esrauk.org Another pick of the festival is a sound installation by artists Pat Jamieson and Carol Laidler, found in a seafront shelter on De La Warr Parade throughout the Festival from 10am – 6pm.

There are events and exhibitions in the brochure, right through to mid October, so go grab yourself a copy or download one on our homepage. 

coastalcurrents.org.uk

Staffed entirely by volunteers – “only the cleaners get paid”, according to chair Neil Sellman – the trust which runs it applied for, and received in full, a grant of £71,187 under Round 1 of the Arts Council’s Culture Recovery Fund in October 2020. This sum was spent on redecoration of the building and upgrades of facilities which had already been planned for. A further application under Round 2 was rejected on the stated ground that it showed “no economic gain”, which seems to have meant that, having no staffing costs, the theatre was reckoned not to need any further funding help. That verdict has been not only accepted by its administration team but seems positively revelled in. 

Still from Stables’ forthcoming production of ‘Macbeth’
CREDIT: Stables Theatre

During periods of heavy restrictions on social gatherings which kept it closed to the public, the theatre was still able to host rehearsals and  workshops, and make films and music videos securing a continuing income stream. It reopened in May 2021, and has kept open continuously since then until the current month of January, which is traditionally set aside for renovations and administrative chores. 

Fortuitous timing

That planned hiatus turns out to have been timed fortuitously to coincide with the Omicron variant tide of infections. Whatever level this reaches in the next few weeks, it seems reasonable to hope that it will be ebbing by February, when the performance schedule will resume with a modern dress production of Macbeth, to be followed by an “absurdist drama” Hitler Pizzeria, written by well-known local dramatist John Knowles, and a range of other theatrical, music and dance events.

Initially, through the summer months of 2021, the Stables was bound by government guidelines to limit its audience by social distancing and mask-wearing conventions. However, from the end of August onwards, in accordance with official easing of restrictions, the theatre instituted a distinctly more liberal regime, returning to
100% capacity seating, normal bar provision, and a general relaxation of mask-wearing requirements, though theatre and bar staff retained them. The first performance of each in-house production was, by contrast, set aside as a socially distanced and mask-wearing event which those who did not wish to wear masks were asked not to book.

Mr Sellman reports this division of audiences an apparent success, with roughly equal capacities achieved for protected and non-protected performances.

He says that the theatre has around 1,500 members paying annual subscriptions, 100-120 amateur actors on its books, and 60 “very active” volunteers. However, they are always looking for fresh volunteers – “of whatever skills: many hands make light work” – particularly in younger age groups.

In 2020 the government suspended live gigs and performances, closed pubs, stopped weddings and festivals and even temporarily banned busking. The Arts Council paused their funds and everyone went silent, accepting a grand pause, an enforced interval. Music and musicians comatose, venues asleep.

CREDIT: Alice Denny

But I wouldn’t accept ‘no gigs’ as a given. After more than a decade of helping support the creative economy here in Hastings and St Leonards, and bringing more than £1million in arts funding, I knew I had to bankroll a new idea in music: a project focused on creating opportunities, online gigs and a step change for local musicians. It was Audiotrope; a digital archive of the local music scene which would end up having legacy way beyond that moment in time. 

We hoped this period would make people really appreciate musicians and live music so if there was to be any advantage to this strange pause, it would be that live music was valued more post-lockdown, and professional musicians could start to command a more reasonable rate for their craft.

However, once the pubs and venues reopened the reverse took place. A sense of desperation and gratitude to play prompted musicians to accept even less money than pre-Covid with venues and festivals profiteering from this neediness.

Some venues, even having received cultural recovery grants to support their local artistes, were known to be paying as little as £10 per musician. Others were collecting door fees or buckets of cash from punters’ donations whilst still paying the performing professional musicians around £30 each.

Our new charter (see below) is designed to end that, asking venues to consider £100 per artist as a fair wage per gig. The Pig, Jenny Lind and TinTins are already signed up and other pubs/venues are due on board in the coming days. We want to reward those venues with free promotion and programming.

I believe that if a venue has a budget of £200 it is far fairer to employ a duo than, say, a sextet. The former gets a livelihood, the latter’s £33 each would hardly cover their expenses. 

Given support, we believe, all venues in Hastings who programme professional musicians for live gigs will be able to afford £100 per musician, but we are willing to work with them on a two-year plan to get them there. Solutions not problems. Support not criticism.

Sweet and Dandy, Coastal Currents’ parent company, is known to campaign for artists and musicians locally. Through the recent fast gentrification process, the wages venues are paying, in reality is actually causing these creatives to be forced out of town. We are a ‘Music City’, we pride ourselves on our live music, we love the vibe of stumbling across a live band every night in the Old Town. We have notable music tourism, so we NEED to be paying our professional musicians enough money to live and work here, to stay here. To retain the creatives that make this town what it is.

Read more: Extracts from the Audiotrope Good Practice Charter and Gentrification and the Pub Landlord

The Audiotrope good practice charter commits its members to: 

1. Fair pay/real living wage 
Professional musicians require a wage to cover living costs and in order to perform have rehearsal fees, travel, porterage, subsistence as well as insurance, wear and tear on equipment etc. As professionals £100 is a basic wage if these individuals are to continue to live in our community and perform locally.

2. Fair hours and contracts/agreements 
Agreements should be honoured including set times/lengths. Professional musicians require and deserve some stability to their income, and cancellation fees, as well as other basic terms, should be standard. 

3. Employee wellbeing 
Wellbeing in terms of environment and other considerations including mental health. Bullying, racism, etc should be not tolerated. 

4. Employee representation 
The right for anyone employed by you to be supported in seeking help from Audiotrope or other union/body. 

5. Diversity and inclusion 
To support diversity in all areas, from employees, to programming. 

6. Prompt payment 
This is key to the mental health of musicians and the support of the creative economy.

What are the benefits? 

1. Gaining the trust and respect of musicians/customers/organisers/promoters. 

2. Your business is directly underpinning your town’s creative economy. 

3. Audiotrope programming at your venue/co-marketing and assistance with funding. 

4. Window sticker/vinyl to display you have signed up to the charter. 

5. Information sharing with other members of the charter/networking events. 

6. Collaborations/greater press and awareness/bigger collective brand to market regionally and nationally.”

• For more information here

Read more HIP related articles: Now give me money and Gentrification and the Pub Landlord

Budding Butterworth

Darling Buds of May actor Tyler Butterworth tells the funny, moving and unashamedly nostalgic story of his much-loved parents, the nation’s first female TV impressionist Janet Brown and the inimitable Carry On star Peter Butterworth. With classic film and tv clips, rare photographs and a Q&A. 

Kino Hawkhurst on 25 November and Kino Rye on 2 December. Watch a trailer here

Midnight at the Museum 

Kate Hulme has been awarded nearly £15,000 through Arts Council National Lottery Project Grants for Midnight at the Museum, a Hastings Museum & Art Gallery project.

It’s a is a new storytelling and well-being activity for children that runs this autumn and winter. 

To sign up for Midnight at the Museum packs, children’s parents or guardians should visit midnightatthemuseum.co.uk

Buddhists for Climate Action

Local members of Soka Gakkai are hosting an art exhibition with the main theme; ‘Climate Action’ at the Stade on the weekend of November 20 and 21. Soka Gakkai is a socially-engaged, global Buddhist movement dedicated to the promotion of education, peace and culture, formed in 1930.

Submissions have been made by local members and friends of members. Entry is free. Opening times: 10-4pm. Instagram: creativekosenrufu

New Arrival

London and Wiltshire émigré Jenny Pollitt is introducing her Lane House Arts organisation to St Leonards with an exhibition A Sense of Place at Electro Studios Project Space at the end of November.

A former Film and TV producer, Jenny formed Lane House Arts in 2008 to specialise in contemporary art, ceramics, sculpture and prints. Their mission is to “seek out, encourage and support emerging talent; represent and promote established artists; offer Art consultancy services and advice and curate exhibitions of exciting, unique and original work.”

See www.lanehousearts.co.uk for details.

What does a rapidly emerging Hastings theatre company do when Covid stops it dead in its tracks? Forced, last Spring, to cancel an Arts Council funded tour of Waiting for Godot days before opening at the White Rock theatre, we did what any self-respecting creative organisation would do: took a deep breath, took stock and reinvented ourselves.

So last Summer we moved Leigh Dyer’s magnificent Godot tree sculpture out into the woods for a weekend of Butoh movement then created a moment with the Bloom Britannia choir in Barefoot Opera’s garden, successfully brought new play, Caravan of Love, to the Brighton Fringe and, most exciting of all, invited internationally renowned theatre master David Glass to bring his creative practice workshop to Hastings, hosted by the Stables Theatre and attended by over twenty creative practitioners. Even under strict Covid rules it proved an intense and electrifying week.

Patrick Kealey in Archy 
PICTURE: Peter Mould

A Re-imagined Godot

Out of adversity comes opportunity. Next Spring David Glass will direct a re-imagined Godot at the Stables Theatre in his own inimitable style – part of a three-year collaboration between ourselves and his ensemble.

And this year? Theatre Nation are racing ahead and back in business. First in the ring is my solo show The Life and Rhymes of Archy and Mehitabel at the Stables Theatre on Thursday May 27th and Friday May 28th at 7.30. Adapted from Don Marquis’ famous hilarious cult poems, it concerns the adventures of Archy, an unfortunate bad free verse poet, now reincarnated as a cockroach, and his wildly temperamental best friend Mehitabel, who claims to be a reincarnation of Cleopatra. Brilliant witty and satirical, Don Marquis’ poems, written at the height of New York’s jazz age, skewer all manner of human folly from an insect’s point of view. After the year we’ve all been through it seemed the perfect time to bring Archy back to life. The performance has also been filmed and will be streamed by the prestigious Prague Fringe Festival. 

Art on Fire

Then for one night only on 2nd June, the Stables will host a remarkable pop-up event, a collaboration between Theatre Nation, film maker Sam Sharples and director Frances Viner. Provocatively entitled Art on Fire, it came about as a spontaneous response to our government’s announcement of savage cuts to arts provision in education. A variety of creative practitioners will be interviewed and filmed about their art. The subsequent film will be screened that night followed by a Q and A and an open forum to ask, “What is the future for the arts in this country?” It promises to be a lively evening.

This will be the perfect introduction to The Lost Child Project in early June. Theatre Nation is one of just six UK companies chosen by the David Glass Ensemble for a remarkable initiative developed over 22 years in 23 countries. It’s a creative process giving voice to marginalised and vulnerable children everywhere. Theatre Nation will become a UK hub to evolve opportunities to work with young people in Hastings. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a theatre company rises from the ashes in a year of crisis.

• For further details about The Lost Child project contact: jane@theatrenation.org

The formal deadline for submission of applications to the Arts Council, who are administering the fund for the DCMS (Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport), is 12 noon next Tuesday 26th January. However, applicant profiles are required to be ‘validated’ by the Arts Council by 12 noon this Thursday (21st January), after which validation is not guaranteed.

The stated aim of this round is to enable cultural organisations to “transition back to a viable and sustainable operating model during April-June 2021.”

When the first round sums were being bid for in August, it was clearly anticipated that social distancing and hygiene requirements would continue over the winter months, and that venues would be running at substantially reduced capacity with the need to modify their operations to take these into account. What was not foreseen was the second and/or third wave of viral infections, and the increasingly restrictive tier systems, followed by renewed lockdowns, which forced all live venues to close their doors again from early November onwards.

Similarly, the guidance for the second round seems to have assumed that during the first quarter of this year capacity restraints would have been relaxed, even though other mitigations such as mask-wearing might still be in place. That looks rather over-optimistic two months later, with the whole nation back in virtually full lockdown and no clear end date in sight.

It will be interesting to learn in due course not only who will benefit and in what amounts from this second round,  but whether, and how, the first round payments are in fact being spent.

Round One: A Re-Cap

Back in October, monetary awards totalling £257 million were allocated nationwide by the Arts Council from the government’s Culture Recovery Fund to cultural organisations such as concert halls, museums, galleries, music venues, etc. The stated aim was to enable those that had been financially stable before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic but were at imminent risk of failure to “recover from” or simply “survive” it. The money allocated was required to be spent by the end of March this year.

Local beneficiaries included the De La Warr Pavilion (over £657,000 offered), the White Rock Theatre (£239,000), The Piper music venue (£237,000) and the Hastings Contemporary (£230,000).

John and I meet on an under-promenade bench framed by a white arch that somehow seems perfectly designed for risk-assessed social distancing. You may not be aware of Fetch, but surely you know of A Penny Pincher’s Christmas Carol which has become a firm part of the local cultural almanac and for some is the signal for the start of festivities.

“You can forget your high-proscenium arch theatres and West End shows, for me theatre is all about intimacy, it’s about breaking boundaries, it’s about the moment.” To John the very heart of vivid pulsing theatre is that which is prohibited under lockdown.

Bar Barbarian
PICTURE: Peter Mould

His love of theatre started In Liverpool, at The Everyman Theatre. “I grew up sitting in the Bistro Bar in the basement of the theatre, rubbing shoulders with actors, painters, pimps, prostitutes, musicians and madmen.” 

Having moved to Hastings he now leads Fetch Theatre, a well-regarded community-based company that receives Arts Council funding and has a whole string of innovative productions to its name. Recent work by the company has been staged in London, Prague, Brighton Fringe and the Edinburgh Festival.

Time Please
PICTURE: Peter Mould

He tells me how he came to understand that theatre should be a “visceral, guttural and physical” experience. He recalls seeing a recent production of Julius Caesar at Bridge Theatre in Southwark and describes it as a “full-on, in-your-face, spit, blood, rush, shove and push of a show where the audience were in the midst of the whole thing, not voyeurs but an essential part of it.”

John’s brand of theatre is an extension of that love of audience/actor mix. Orchestra pit? What orchestra pit? Small scale, intimate and challenging. “For me there is no greater moment than when the audience, the script and the actors are in unison, all held in one communal breath.” 

My only criteria for a piece is that I enjoy making it and I like it when it’s finished

I sense the frustration John feels that he cannot ply his trade during the Covid-19 lockdown. The idea that to resume any form of theatre normality might involve sparsely spread audiences sitting two metres apart numbs him. If the audience and actors are not rubbing shoulders and looking each other directly in the eye, then the event will be anodyne and impotent he tells me. 

Despite valiant attempts to keep theatre alive during this period, no amount of free streaming of National Theatre productions can replace the physical encounter of being present at a live theatre piece in its ‘moment’ of performance. The BBC’s Unprecedented series has been written and filmed in lockdown and not only responds to the radical way we have seen our world change during the coronavirus pandemic, but is formally ‘of’ the pandemic. One piece in the series, for example, is a dramatised family Zoom meeting. This is like theatre, but it is not actually theatre. It may be good TV, but is thin gruel compared to the ‘real’ thing.

Pandemic aside, it is a surprise that a town that has such a thriving independent music scene, a full professional symphony orchestra and such a communally agreed commitment to and love of the Arts, does not have a thriving experimental theatre community. This is especially the case when you consider how many proven and distinguished actors and theatre professionals there are who live in Hastings. But people and projects need a space, and John emphasises the urgent need to establish a dedicated ‘black box’ venue in the town.

“The curtains are closed for now, the lights are dimmed, but visceral, tangible and full of passion, we will return.” John assures me.

• For more information please check Fetch Theatre website fetch-theatre.co.uk

Council votes funds for feasibility study

The Labour-controlled cabinet of Hastings Borough Council (HBC) voted on Monday evening to pursue a feasibility study for the development of a combined sporting and cultural centre in the White Rock area off Bohemia Road. The long term idea is to develop the area, branded as the Bohemia Quarter, as a distinct leisure and cultural ‘destination’. It is to be surrounded by new housing, one or more hotels and ‘revitalised’ gardens and other public spaces, but with a large leisure facility and performance venue at its heart. The first stage will be to spend up to £100,000 in commissioning feasibility studies that will determine its viability. 

The council’s Marketing and Major Projects Manager, Kevin Boorman, told cabinet members that both the Arts Council and Sport England were enthusiastic in their support.  The Arts Council has already offered a £10,000 grant towards this first stage and is “keen to become a partner in the project”. Officers of Sport England are “exploring external funding opportunities to contribute towards the cost”. HBC has budgeted up to £19,000 in the forthcoming year 2018/19 for an “approved growth item”. It would look for other external funders to cover at least part of the remaining shortfall, but in the alternative would implement cuts elsewhere in order to pursue this project.

Councillors in the Labour majority spoke in rhapsodic terms of the development potential. Cllr Kim Forward told her colleagues that it was “ a really exciting opportunity to think in creative terms”. Cllr Judy Rogers wanted to “integrate leisure with arts and music” in a way that would engage people of all ages “in an area of high deprivation…A small investment would bring massive return”. Cllr Andy Batsford claimed that Hastings already has a good track record in providing leisure facilities, now it could be “super-charged”.  

Leader of the council Peter Chowney endorsed the vision of a “combined multi-cultural performance venue and leisure centre”.  Summerfields and the White Rock Theatre were “not going to see us through much longer”. Doing nothing about it was not an option.

Conservative opposition councillor Rob Lee agreed that the council officers had put forward “an exciting piece of work’’ that could “transform” the local and neighbouring wards of the town. He also admitted that existing leisure facilities were “coming to the end of their best years”. But in his view the council simply could not afford it. There was no money in next year’s budget to raise the balance of the £100,000 required, and no immediate prospect of finding it. What about combining with Rother District Council council to develop a mutually serviceable leisure centre?

Cllr Chowney chided Cllr Lee’s objection as “short-sighted” Actually he had floated the idea of a combined leisure centre with Rother previously. “They weren’t interested”. But “…spend this money now, and we’ll get it back in the future”, he declared. “The idea is that it will be self-financing, with the potential to develop an income stream in the future”.

The motion to proceed with the feasibility study was duly carried, with the Labour majority outvoting Tory councillors Lee and Andy Patmore. A consultant should be appointed within the next two months, to report with a proposal and outline business case for the centre by September.

West Marina
Earlier in the evening the cabinet had debated a petition submitted by the West Marina group of residents in response to the council’s notice of intended disposal of the former bathing pool site there (see HIP Issue 120). The council chamber was packed with around 70 of the group’s supporters, and their chair Virginia Vilela was given five minutes to address the councillors with their objections – principally that the council was disposing of the site to private developers without any proper consultation with the local community, and that the process had not been open or transparent.

In response Cllr Chowney insisted that development of the site was in accordance with the local plan, adopted in 2015, that earmarked it “for housing and leisure use”.  The intention is to make it a ‘destination’ point (clearly the buzzword of the evening) “spreading tourists and visitors along the seafront”. The precise terms of the deal had to be kept confidential until the approved developers County Gate/Sunley had signed up to a leasehold purchase. There would be a wide consultation at the planning stage.

The council then voted to proceed, only Cllr Patmore opposing.

With new financial support from the Arts Council and PRS For Music, as well as from other local sponsors including Hastings Borough Council, organisers Bob Tipler and Adam Daly undertook a huge marketing effort not only in places like Brighton and Tunbridge Wells but in London too. And how the hosting venues were rewarded! Crowds of out-of-towners descended by road and rail for the weekend and beyond, most intent on the twin enticements of music and alcohol but many ready to dance, costume up and explore the streets. Where, just to to enhance an authentic New Orleans feel, they experienced the bonus of wild winds and an occasional downpour from the edge of Storm Freya.

Following the launch party at the Albion on Friday, some 30 bands played 15-minute ‘unplugged’ acoustic sets each at a succession of participating venues over five hours of Saturday afternoon  – quite a few struggling to be heard, it has to be reported; the Mardi Gras ball followed on at St-Mary-in-the-Castle. Rain and wind on Sunday caused the cancellation of the traditional umbrella parade  – but only so it could be transferred to the interior of St-Mary, where it gained in density what was lost in movement. 

Adam Daly said he was especially pleased with the success of other fringe events over the weekend, in particular the Sonics celebration of avant garde electronic music, and  Monday’s music industry panel event, the Unconvention.

• Next year? The festival will be back – “pushing the boundaries further,” Daly promised.

ALL PICTURES: Mark Richards

Eight years since its first appearance, Hastings Storytelling Festival returns once again for a diverse series of events happening all over town between 5th and 11th November. There’s something for everyone here – adults, families and of course local children, which this fun festival aims to inspire and involve in literature.

The theme this year is ‘place’ so expect exciting happenings throughout Hastings and
St Leonards. From carpark psychogeography to bonkers hats and nosy puppets, through gender stories and LGBTQ performance acts, secret tea parties and WW1 fables, to a midnight run (stroll really) with surprise artistic encounters along the way, what’s not to like?

On the Saturday Magick Door have created an ‘Otherworld’ of interactive hypnagogic holophonic soundworlds of immersive stories in Alexander Park. Sunday 11th climaxes in Children’s Storytelling Carnival Day, an illustrious array of storytellers from 12-4 pm on The Stade, with a children’s carnival parade at 3 pm.

Thanks to National Lottery funding from the Arts Council this festival has been able to work with 14 local schools providing visits from festival Artist in Residence, Sarah Evans. There have also been school visits from the Storytelling Festival Laureate, Jan Blake and Storytellers in Residence, Spud and Yam. Most events are free and those ticketed are used to subsidise free children’s events. With Sir Quentin Blake as patron and ‘Gruffalo’ illustrator Axel Scheffler involved, this is a serious local festival and not to be missed.

• There are free programme brochures around Hastings, St Leonards and Bexhill or for more information check out:

www.hastingsstoryfest.org.uk 
www.facebook.com/hastingsstoryfest 
Twitter: @hastingsstory

Streets of Battle returned in April after a team of local producers was granted Arts Council Funding for 2018’s event. The festival brings top-notch street performers and entertainers to public spaces around Battle. Reviewed by Naomi Robinson

At the first event in April visitors enjoyed an extraordinary encounter with a Goblin Queen and her huge fire-breathing Dragon in Dragon Quest from Circo Rum Ba Ba. Too Many Cooks by Handmade Theatre was a sizzlingly scrumptious show, jam-packed with tasty tunes, popping puppets and a lot of silly sausages, and there were hair-raising circus skills from the UK Africa Acrobats as they juggled hats, bowls, people and bicycles. There were also stilt-walkers and drumming from Drumskullz.

At the next event on Saturday 26th May, audiences will meet Pongo, from The Flying Buttresses – an inquisitive, affectionate and cheeky eight-foot baby Obobee bird. The Grand Theatre of Lemmings’ woodland fairies will ride through Battle on unicorns enchanting with magical know-how, and Battle’s very own Youth Street Theatre group will perform their own show, created during the Festival with mentoring by Inside Out Theatre Company. Plus stilt-walkers.

And on Saturday 2nd June, Streets of Bexhill in Devonshire Road and Devonshire Square includes the wonderful L’Hotel by Circo Rum Ba Ba – the ‘smallest hotel in the world’ returns to usher in guests with a hilarious blend of slapstick, circus and disguise. The kit-bags loading a giant, travelling mule open to reveal magical miniature puppet shows in Kit and Caboodle by Thingumajig Theatre. And get ready for Granny Turismo – the world’s first (and only) Shopping Trolley Dance Display Team! When these girls arrive on their souped-up shopping trolleys, everybody knows about it. Plus stilt-walking and drumming from Section 5 drummers

Mandy Curtis, of 18 Hours, the local production company who have supported with funding applications and production, said “We’re thrilled to be helping this great community organisation bring Streets of Battle to life. The event brings some of the country’s best street performers to Battle for everyone to enjoy for free.”

• For more information, look out for the Streets of Battle leaflet or visit the Streets of Battle Facebook page: facebook.com/battlestreetarts

We hope you have enjoyed reading this article from Hastings Independent. The future of this volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.

BY CAF FEAN

Delight in a glitzy cabaret strictly for the over 60s, encounter Great Expectations on the streets of St Leonards or play a part in an opera inspired by the lives of local folk. Early 2018 looks set to be full of opportunities to get involved and immersed in some fantastic projects here in Hastings.

From 13th March to 15th April 2018, ExploretheArch will bring Charles Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’ to town. Visit this quirky non-traditional arts and culture venue, Archer Lodge in Charles Road, St Leonards,
TN38 0QX.

The House of the Identity of Things at Archer Lodge acts as one part of the journey: look out for visual responses dotted about St Leonards. Restaurants and cafes will be reinventing themselves as pop up creative writing hubs. Partners include Zoom Arts, Open Door Hastings, Arts Hastings and Bexhill Mencap, Black Winkle Arts, Burtons’
St Leonards Society and others.

Barefoot Opera embark upon a major new project, A Town, which tells the story of our lives on the South Coast in the here and now, and will culminate in a brand-new opera. Building on the success of CLASH!, a choral extravaganza involving seven Hastings choirs, seven commissions, and music for the combined choirs, Barefoot Opera has been awarded an Arts Council ‘Research and Development’ Grant for the first stage of an ambitious new project, also involving local people and professional singers, to begin in the Spring 2018. The whole project will take place over the next three years, with the performance itself to take place at the De La Warr Pavilion in the Spring of 2020.

Visit the project website to find out about exciting opportunities to get involved. Some workshops will focus on singing, while others will be more about points-of-view, stories, memories and experiences. There will also be more informal interviews, walkabouts and discussions in pubs, hairdressers and other public places. These sessions will be free and open to all and will be run by members of Barefoot Opera’s creative team. Visit the website in early January to book a free workshop.

Purveyors of progressive working-class entertainment, Duckie are bringing us The Posh Club, a ritzy cabaret event for swanky senior citzens, elegant elders and glamorous golden girls in Hastings. There will be lots of amazing acts – three per week usually. Showbiz sideshows include tap dancers, opera singers, comedians, London’s finest flappers, acrobats, hula-hoopers, Black Elvis, Chinese Elvis and White Elvis, music hall starlets, soubrettes, ukelele bands, acapella troupes, impersonators and the finest ballet.

Expect spectacular cabaret, classic afternoon tea and a ritzy afternoon party. For Ages 60+ and their friends and fans – tickets are £5. To book a table call 07848 831 290. Dress Code: Posh.

Every Friday for 10 weeks from 23rd March till 25th May 2018, 12noon – 3pm at St John the Evangelist Hall, Brittany Road, Upper St Leonards East Sussex TN38 0RD.

For more information: atownexploresabook.com, barefootopera.com/a-town, duckie.co.uk/events/the-posh-club

We hope you have enjoyed reading this article from Hastings Independent Press. The future of this volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.