Fetch Theatre members John Knowles (right), Sidney Kean (left) in a scene from Toby Belch is Unwell
PICTURE: Peter Mould

Coastal Currents and Isocreation

Isocreation represents a wealth of artwork fresh from East Sussex College Hastings, and you’ll probably want to watch the featured presentations first. Head to www.wethefuture.co.uk/isocreationlive and scroll down. Play the video. It’s long, but it’s good. Skip to 2:57 if you don’t like introductions. Somewhere in that array of students’ short films, you’ll find one that really hits you, an artist whose chosen themes and styles change your world.
It’s 22 shorts, by the students and about their work. There’s easily room for a revelation in there somewhere, and a lot of entertainment in the meantime.

After this, scroll down the page again and there’s a lot of other work to peruse. Use the links, find the student whose video you liked. All those in the feature are Level 3, which should help narrow things down. Follow their Instagram. Send them an email. Many an artist would love that.

The National Theatre and its players are safe, especially with this new government funding pot floating about. Our local independent theatres are not

This virtual exhibition Isocreation is what would have been the summer showcase of East Sussex College Hastings’ student artwork. Due to Covid, it’s all online, and you have to jump through a few more hoops to talk to the artists and tutors, though you don’t have to travel as far. Coastal Currents – which you know – is still alive, and presented the 22 student films in a livestream on Facebook. They’re also on Isolation Station every Saturday. While we’re on that topic, go on Facebook, look up #coastalcurrents2020 in the search bar. You’ll then see what they’ve been up to recently, including the lovely features on Isolation Station. Actually, due to a small hashtagging oversight, you’ll also have to look up #coastalcurrentsartfestival to see everything. Some under #coastalcurrents2020, some under #coastalcurrentsartsfestival. It’s easy to lose track of hashtags. 

As per usual, there is a crowdfunding page for the 2020 Coastal Currents Festival. Find it here: www.gofundme.com/coastal-currents-2020. The aim is to raise match funding for an application to the Arts Council. Bearing in mind that the government has just released £1.57bn to fund “the arts”, there’s a chance that Arts Council England will have a few quid to spare, but again, it’s match funding. Coastal Currents has to bring its half to the table. Also, I’ve heard rumours that the government fund is there to keep our cultural giants afloat as a priority. We don’t yet know by any official statement who exactly will be funded and what they’ll need to spend it on, but I think it’s safe to assume that, as per usual, local arts initiatives will be at the bottom of the list. They just don’t generate enough tourism for Westminster to pay attention.

Hastings Theatre: Ghost in the Machine 

With sit-in theatre looking like it’ll be in lockdown longer than most other spheres of artistic life, creators and actors across the country are having to work out alternative ways of performing for our entertainment. The National Theatre is streaming from its back-catalogue every week on YouTube – and those shows are well worth the watching. It’s not just brilliant re-imaginings of Shakespeare, there’s plenty of content that’s modern and even contemporary in origin, with prescient subject matter. But the National Theatre and its players are safe, especially with this new government funding pot floating about. 

Our local independent theatres are not. But they’re doing their best to carry on anyway. Fetch Theatre (which many of you will know) is responsible for an excellent range of plays and performances that have toured internationally and won widespread acclaim. Look over the back catalogue on their website if you like: theneverplayed.wixsite.com/fetch-theatre. Fetch has responded to lockdown, true to form, by creating brilliant new material for us, and displaying it online for free. 

Scene from Toby Belch is Unwell
PICTURE: Peter Mould

“Ghost in the Machine is a series of stories set in 2020, created on Zoom. Darkly comic tales with a twist, featuring actors from Hastings as different characters in different situations every episode (but not about the virus!).”

The first two stories or episodes of Ghost in the Machine are available to watch on YouTube, via the link on Fetch’s website: theneverplayed.wixsite.com/fetch-theatre/ghost-in-the-machine. So far the series reveals those parts of our digital and technological experience that sit beneath the tip of the iceberg: specifically the wealth of information about ourselves that we surrender willingly, or even put on display for people we wish wouldn’t see it. This leads to a shortening of distance that means friend and foe alike can more easily track their acquaintances across vast distances that could once have been used to escape past mistakes. 

We know “our data is vulnerable” because it’s regularly told to us in these metallic terms, but we don’t always recognise what this could mean. It’s very funny when this comes out in ludicrous ways, where our mistakes are minor, where it’s happy ignorance or common misconception leading to a tumble…but online and digitally, so much of our hidden self exists in the same space as our public self. Ghost in the Machine skilfully explores the many ways in which public and private now unexpectedly intersect, and how our memories are not always just our own. 

The next Event is: “A tense drama mixing Mary Celeste conspiracy with Cthulhu mythology, as three outsiders, abandoned at sea, confront each other and elemental powers rising from the abyss.”

This new play by John Knowles, has been developed partly in response to the amazing actors John has been working with of late, Emily Carding one -woman Hamlet and Richard the III), Sidney Kean (Girl from the North Country – West End) and Marc Twinn (Shadow of the Rose – 4 Stars Edinburgh Fringe), partly in response to playing way too many Cthulhu inspired board games and partly as a personal challenge to tackle the horror genre with intelligence, originality and a strong female lead.

The play takes the basic information of the Mary Celeste and projects onto it a series of events, linked to the full moon and encompassing elements of ‘The Heart of Darkness’, ‘The Night of the Hunter’ and Lovecraft’s ‘Call of the Cthulhu’. Within this heady mix is a basic story of the hunter, the hunted and the prey about our base elemental fears and about the morality of survival. Who in truth knows what the monster really looks like? 

Dates up and coming

Wednesday 19th February, 7.30pm 
‘The Mary Celeste and the Beast of the Bowery’
by John Knowles

Wednesday 18th March, 7.30pm
‘Two Fools or the Drina Drop’
by John Knowles

Wednesday 15th April, 7.30pm
‘Big Trouble in Little Yalta’
by Neil Salvage

Wednesday 20th May, 7.30pm  
‘Christmas 15’ by Glyn Carter

Wednesday 17th of June, 7.30pm
TBC

• If you are a playwright or actor looking to get involved with First Heard, contact John on 07813 035514 or email fetchtheatre@gmail.com

Sophie Shaw talks to John Knowles about how the independent theatre scene is on the rise in Hastings and St Leonards in advance of his latest show Hitleria Pizzeria, Parts I&II

John Knowles moved to Hastings in 1999. Many HIP readers will be familiar with his work: he has variously been involved in running Coastal Currents, setting up the St Leonards Festival and running the theatre in the Observer building during its time as a community hub.

‘The pub theatre scene is usually where independent theatre thrives,’ he tells me, ‘but that hasn’t been the case here. There is such a strong pub music scene, where bands play for free, and it has been difficult for paid for shows to gain any traction. I strongly believe that theatre is for everyone and prices should be accessible, but equally it costs money to put shows on and that has to come from somewhere.’

So, what is it that’s changing? ‘The influx of people to the town. Theatre is a collaborative art form and needs a community of practitioners to flourish. Theatremakers have been arriving in numbers and are willing to take risks, making it easier to put on new and experimental shows. We haven’t solved our problems, but we are becoming a more powerful group. We are in the process of setting up a steering group to look out for the sectors interests, lobby local government and provide support.’

And the future? What lies there? Knowles wants to push the town as a great place to develop new writing. ‘The quality of actors coming into the town makes it much easier to put on new plays here.’ He is talking in the run-up to his show Hitleria Pizzeria, which opens at The Garage on 9 November. Set in a non-specific eastern European country, Part I of this absurdist comedy sees the owner of a local bar start wearing a Hitler moustache. The entrance of a young revolutionary soldier provides a catalyst for a series of interactions about life, death, loyalty and sacrifice. Audiences may remember this from last year, but the show now comes with a new second act. Part II picks up the story five years later, in the age of the Oligarchs, where PR and control of the media are on the agenda. Starring Sidney Kean (an award-winning actor new to the area), the show has gained interest from the post-Soviet bloc, with readings at the National Theatre of Serbia under discussion and a producer in Belgrade looking to turn it into a feature film. Catch it in St Leonards first though.

Hiterlia Pizzeria, Parts I & II, 9–11 November 2017, The Garage, through the Horse and Groom, 4 Mercatoria, St Leonards on Sea, tickets £12 (£10 conc.) from https://hp-parts1and2.bpt.me

 And if you’re a theatremaker interested in a steering group for the local scene, Knowles would like to hear from you at fetchtheatre@gmail.com