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The Threechurches take Shoreham
A lovely gig at a friendly open mic in Shoreham. The Welly is a pub that quite clearly plays a crucial role in the town’s music ecosystem – here you find local teens (underage, but allowed to play), wizened singer-songwriter hobos, and a backbone of regulars who add percussion, piano, and even flute to anyone… Read more
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REVIEW: Brighton Fringe: Dian Cathal – Deadnamed
In Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea novels, names are literally magic. To know the true name of a rock, a bird, or even a human, is to have mastery over it, they, or them. This is why, in Earthsea, most people go by a nickname: telling someone your true name is an act of intense love,… Read more
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Walking from Lewes to Rottingdean
On a windy, sunny Sunday afternoon, I got my butt out of my usual, sometimes self-defeating patterns of weekend behaviour and took myself up into the Downs. I’m very lucky to have the South Downs National Park on my doorstep, and I have been rationing bits of it out to myself slowly. My brain forever… Read more
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The Hovercraft from Southsea to Ryde
The Hovercraft from Southsea in Hampshire to Ryde on the Isle of Wight is the last commercial passenger hovercraft service in England, and one of two left in Europe. [1] Hovercrafts were the future, once. A British invention, from the endearingly stereotypical crackpot eccentric Christopher Cockrell, these were the postwar zeppelins: a mode of transport… Read more
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BRIGHTON FRINGE: QUERTY (Jen Zheng and Beck Walker)
One split bill, two queer, neurodivergent comedians, sweaty back room of a pub: what’s not to like? Here on an early Friday evening, the weekend still a whirlpool of possibilities, we see two of the best young stand-ups working their way towards a debut hour (or, indeed, two debut hours). In football parlance, this is… Read more
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Word With The Bird @SweetFest, Yellow Book
Last Saturday afternoon I appeared as headliner at the final “Word With The Bird” all-ages show, hosted and produced by Mark Tournoff. I’d not met Mark before, but he seems a most well connected man. I bemusedly shared a video promoting our show from local MP Sian Berry, before discovering that Kim Fuller, who wrote… Read more
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Brighton Fringe: Baba
Baba is you, me, or anyone. Borders are whims of the powerful, after all, and the difference between a migrant and a citizen is a hastily drawn line on a map. Halima Habil – Romanian-Moroccan, Gaulier-trained clown, understands this better than anyone. She’s worked with Clowns Without Borders in London, Bucharest, and Casablanca, and is… Read more
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Brighton Fringe: Kate Cheka – A Messiah Comes
Can art change the world? This is the weighty topic at the heart of Kate Cheka’s debut hour, one that wowed Edinburgh Fringe in 2024 and has lost none of its relevance and refreshing political directness. You don’t see many left wing stand-ups these days – not to be confused with liberal, vaguely “progressive” comedians,… Read more
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