Viva Brighton September 2015 Issue #31

vivabrighton
Issue 31. Sep 2015
editorial
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What are you wearing, as you read this? Are you dressed for comfort,
or are you making some sort of style statement? Or possibly both?
How long did it take you to decide what to put on this morning? To
what extent is the set of clothes you’ve put on some sort of uniform?
How much money did your current get up cost you? What percentage
of what you’re wearing is second hand? What percentage was bought
in Brighton? How much of it came from national chain stores, and how much of it from
independent retailers? If you have a partner, do they approve of everything you’re wearing? Is
there a significant difference between the clothes you wear in the week, and the clothes you
wear at the weekend? When did you last ‘dress up’ and what was the occasion? Has anything
in your wardrobe been chosen for its outrageous nature? If so, what? How long have you
owned the item of clothing you bought longest ago? How often do you cull your wardrobe?
What percentage of the clothing in your home has not been worn in the last year? Do you
think people think you dress well? Do you care? Should you care? What do your clothes say
about you? This month our theme, inspired by The Costume Games taking place in the city,
is ‘dressing up’. Our sartorial advice? Be yourself. Enjoy the issue…
The Team
.....................
EDITOR: Alex Leith alex@vivabrighton.com
DEPUTY EDITOR: Steve Ramsey steveramsey@vivabrighton.com
ART DIRECTOR: Katie Moorman katie@vivabrighton.com
PHOTOGRAPHER AT LARGE: Adam Bronkhorst
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Rebecca Cunningham
ADVERTISING: Anya Zervudachi anya@vivabrighton.com, Nick Metcalf nickmetcalf@vivabrighton.com,
PUBLISHERS: Nick Williams nick@vivabrighton.com, Lizzie Lower lizzie@vivamagazines.com
CONTRIBUTORS: Amy Holtz, Andrew Darling, Antonia Phillips, Ben Bailey, Chloë King,
Holly Fitzgerald, Jim Stephenson, JJ Waller, Joe Decie, Joda, John Helmer, Lizzie Enfield and Martin Skelton
Viva is based at Brighton Junction, 1A Isetta Square, BN1 4GQ
For advertising enquiries call 07596 337 828
Other enquiries call 01273 810259
Every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of our content. We cannot be held responsible for any omissions, errors or alterations.

contents
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Bits and bobs.
6-22. Cover artist Sarah Young,
Brighton-born Ben Sherman, JJ
Waller, more secrets of the Pavilion
and Joe Decie
63
Photography.
25-29. Jean-Luc Brouard takes us
behind the scenes at the Brighton (and
London) Fashion Week
Columns.
30-33. Amy Holtz’ Jedi partner, John
Helmer’s Norwegian forebears, Chloë
King’s Swedish lodgers and Lizzie
Enfield’s Texan interviewee
Brighton in History.
34-35. Valerie Barker, Brighton-resident
transgender pioneer
My Brighton.
36-37. Nicky Röhl, Moshimo co-owner
and Costume Games organiser
In Town this Month.
39-50. Nineties badboys These Animal
Men, a digital ballet, a possible robot
takeover, Today’s James Naughtie,
Avenue Q puppetry, stand up feminist
Clare Dowie and subversive comedian
Mark Thomas
45
Cinema.
51-53. How to Change the World director
Jerry Rothwell, and Yoram Allon’s
round-up of September’s most interesting
movies, including Scalarama 2015
....4 ....

contents
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Art, design and literature.
54-59. Al fresco artist Solange Leon,
Graham Churchyard’s Batsuit and
Brighton novelist Alison MacLeod
67
Brighton makers.
61-64. We try knicker making with
Sew Fabulous, and meet Frances Tobin
from Maker’s Atelier, and inventor Paul
Harrison. Plus Gladrags costume hire
The Way We Work.
67-73. Adam Bronkhorst investigates
the world of sewers and dressmakers
Food and drink.
74-83. Fusion tapas at Señor Buddha,
a recipe from Sourdough, a Bronx
Burger at the Mesmerist, and cocktails
at Okinami. Plus Small Batch’s everinformative
Coffee Guy, Alan Tomlins
77
97
Family.
85-86. Remixing the Booth Museum, and
outdoor activities for the Under 16s
Health and fitness.
87-92. Children’s counselling, Albion’s kit
manager, bike-frame maker Jon Chickens,
and salt-water floatation
Features.
93-97. Bluffers’ guide to film making,
Brighton Chamber boss Sarah Springford,
and Fabrica’s fab new extension
Inside Left.
98. A cowboy, a pirate and a mystery
jockey in New England Street, 1953
....5 ....

this month’s cover artist
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....6 ....

this month’s cover artist
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This month’s ‘dressing up’ theme had us all thinking
about those lovely cut-out paper dolls we used to
have, which came with little cut-out outfits you
could dress them up in. So we were thrilled when
this month’s cover artist, Sarah Young, came to us
with the idea of re-creating exactly this. “I thought
it was very apt for me to do this cover,” she said, “I
had done a silk screen print years ago called The
Mothcatchers, and I wanted this design to have the
same mannequin clotheshorse feel.” Initially there
were going to be two costumes: a bird and an insect,
but given the limited space on the cover of a Vivasized
magazine, she decided that one would work
better. The figure itself was designed to be “slightly
androgynous, with character, but faceless.” As a
designer and print-maker, Sarah prints wonderful
cut-and-sew tea towels, which seem too beautiful
to cut up, and apparently many buyers pick up two:
one to keep and one to sew. We hope you’ll feel the
same about your Viva, or at least that you’ll have a
good read of it before you get crafting.
Sarah also forms one half of Tutton and Young,
the creative duo behind MADE Brighton (and
London) and Brighton Art Fair, which takes place
later this month. The fair “promises a good balance
of established and emerging artists,” with
100 exhibitors from the UK and abroad. A few of
Sarah’s ones to watch include Blue Beany, or Anna
Bean, who makes surreal constructed photography
prints and illustrations, Rosie Wates, who creates
mixed media theatre boxes, and Alberto Fusco, a
sculpted-paperwork artist. This year’s event will be
supporting Chestnut Tree House hospice and there
will be a Big Heart Auction to raise money for the
cause. Each of the artists has been given two manila
envelopes, which they will decorate with their own
artwork, and the envelopes will be for sale during
Brighton Art Fair.
Rebecca Cunningham
sarah-young.co.uk. More information and advance
ticket details can be found at brightonartfair.co.uk.
24-27 September, The Corn Exchange
....7 ....

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BY ANY CO-ED SCHOOL.”
THE GUARDIAN AUGUST 2015
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DAY, FULL AND WEEKLY BOARDING
01273 258692
WWW.BRIGHTONCOLLEGE.ORG.UK

its and bobs
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on the buses:
spread the word
#5 Ben Sherman (No 12A)
Illustration by Joda, jonydaga.weebly.com
There was a time
when Ben Sherman
worked as ‘a
waiter who serenaded
the evening
customers with a
variety of songs,’
according to the
brand’s historian,
Paolo Hewitt.
Back then, Sherman
was still Arthur Sugarman, an expat Brit seeking
wealth in America.
He was born in Brighton, where his parents ran a
sweet shop and later a pawn shop. Too ambitious
to merely carry on the family business, Sugarman
moved to America in 1946, aged 20. In the following
seven years, he went through two marriages and
various jobs, including salesman and tobacco picker.
His third wife, Ruth, was the daughter of a successful
clothing entrepreneur, who hired Sugarman and
subsequently taught him ‘every aspect of the business’.
The young protégé found the company’s shirt
designs ‘too conservative’, and was ‘bored and frustrated’,
Hewitt writes.
Brought back to Brighton in 1961 by news of his
mother’s serious illness, he set up a factory at 21
Bedford Square, initially ‘making shirts for other
companies,’ a former employee later recalled. ‘He
slowly, very slowly, started to introduce odd samples
and bits and pieces he wanted to do. That’s how it
all started.’
His shirts developed such cachet among mods that
Sherman was later described, by a Brighton Museum
pamphlet, as ‘the Mod God’. In the mid-70s, the
firm’s website notes, ‘bad health meant he sold the
company and retired to Australia’. He died in 1987.
Further reading: Paolo Hewitt - My Favourite Shirt
Young Cody Clarke, of Sydney’s Watsons Bay,
takes in July’s issue of Viva Brighton – and news
of the British summer - whilst the winter sun sets
over the harbour. Carry on taking Viva wherever
you go and, via hello@vivamagazines.com, help
us spread the word…
brighton art fair offer
Over 100 artists exhibit at Brighton Art Fair.
To get your 2-4-1 ticket voucher, email your
name and address to 241@brightonartfair.co.uk
by Monday 21 Sept and you’ll shortly be sent
a voucher in the post. Private View tickets for
Thursday, 24th September (6pm - 8.30pm), will
be available online for £10 and include an exhibitor
catalogue in the ticket price. Early bird tickets
are available online for £5.50. Tickets on the
door will cost £6.50 per person (children under
14 free). brightonartfair.co.uk
....9 ....

LEwes
LidO SWIm
ChalLEng
Saturday 19 September 2015
Take the plunge and join Team Macmillan
for our very own 2km or, more challenging,
5km sponsored swim at Pells Pool on Saturday
19 September 2015.
Sign up as an individual or get your friends
together to form a relay team! You can help
us ensure no one faces cancer alone.
To sign up and for more information
visit macmillan.org.uk/lidolewes
email swimming@macmillan.org.uk
or call 020 7840 4937
Macmillan Cancer Support, registered charity in England and
Wales (261017), Scotland (SC039907) and the Isle of Man (604).

its and bobs
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jj waller’s brighton
For our ‘dressing up’ theme JJ’s chosen this shot: “Skinhead style has always appealed
to me, so the annual reunion at the Volks is a must for me and my camera,” he says.
He’s been further afield recently. “I’m working on a book about Blackpool so I’ve
been there many times this year. They’re both seaside resorts, but they’re enormously
different. One huge difference is in the clothes people wear. Brighton is very selfconscious
and style-led. I haven’t seen a single beard-and-haircut thing in Blackpool.”
....11....

TOUR THE
WINE ESTATE
EAT OR STAY AT
THE FLINT BARNS
EXPLORE THE
RATHFINNY TRAIL
HOST YOUR
SPECIAL EVENT
Rathfinny Wine Estate, Alfriston, East Sussex BN26 5TU / www.rathfinnyestate.com

Joe decie
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....13....

Visit our Brighton shop in September and
get 15% off your curtain and blind orders.
23 New Road
Brighton
BN1 1UF
01273 605574
sales@mistersmith.co.uk
www.mistersmith.co.uk
Croft Road
Crowborough
TN6 1DR
01892 664152
info@mistersmith.co.uk

its and bobs
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Pub: the colonnade
“He’s called Willie,” says Paul, outgoing
manager of the Colonnade pub on New
Road, about the slightly creeps-inducing
automaton that welcomes visitors into
the bar. “Nobody seems to know how
long he’s been here, but a customer who
was an expert on suits told me the one
he’s wearing would have been made in
the 1890s.”
I’m having a chat with Paul about the
history of the place, which is owned by
the Theatre Royal, and run by the family
pubco The Golden Lion Group, as a
freehold. He won’t switch Willie on because
“he’s delicate, and anyway he’s not
plugged in”, but on a good day he’ll doff
his top hat to you. He used to be clockwork,
but his innards were electrified in
the fifties or sixties.
The building used to house a cobbler’s,
apparently, before being converted into
a ‘Refreshment Rooms’, then into a
‘Wine and Supper Rooms’, and then, in
1854, into ‘The Colonnade Hotel’, with
rooms upstairs. It was renovated in the
1890s, at some expense, judging from
the elegantly glazed green terracotta
exterior, and intricate etched-glass panels.
In this period the colonnade which
shelters the entrance from the rain used
to be the pick-up point for town-centre
prostitutes. “After the show,” says Paul,
“you could hire out-of-work actresses
for the night”.
The proximity to the theatre means it’s
packed three times an evening: before
and after the show, and during intervals.
Often the actors come in, and many
of them have left their publicity cards,
which are framed on the wall, “but only if we like them.” I
spot George Cole, Lionel Blair, and, remarkably enough, Judy
Garland (when was she in town?) “Rowan Atkinson was here
in the winter,” says Paul. “He was a very nice man.” I ask Paul
which celebrities he hasn’t liked, but he’s too discreet to tell me.
A little bit of research reveals that, before his time presumably,
Sean Connery was at least once a visitor, and Dora Bryan was
quite a regular.
The faded grandeur of the place takes some beating, making
the Colonnade quite a fun place to take visitors who want their
Brighton experience to be a bit Patrick Hamilton (though a
post-smoking-ban £50,000 renovation means it isn’t quite as
shabby-chic as it used to be). And, as they don’t do food, it’s an
excellent place for a quiet lunchtime pint; if your appetite for
one makes it past their sinister doorman, that is. AL
Painting by Jay Collins
....15....

its and boBs
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di coke’s competition corner
The Royal Pavilion & Museums Foundation are delighted to offer one lucky reader the chance to win a year’s
annual membership to the Royal Pavilion, giving you and one guest a year’s unlimited free entry to the Pavilion,
Brighton Museum and all paying exhibitions, with a host of other benefits
too - find out more at brightonmuseums.org.uk. Three runners-up will win a
cream tea for two at the Royal Pavilion.
Inspired by the forthcoming exhibition, we’d like you to design and
name your own ‘Exotic Creature’ - it could be a drawing, a collage or
a model. Share a photograph of your creature on Twitter, Instagram or
Facebook with the #VivaBrightonComp hashtag - or alternatively, email
to competitions@vivamagazines.com. The most creative entry will feature
in our November issue and win the annual membership – the three runnersup
prizes will be awarded at random. Entries must be received before 30th
September 2015 and all ages are welcome to enter. Full terms and conditions
can be found at vivamagazines.com
Di Coke is very probably the UK’s foremost ‘comper’, having won
over £250,000-worth of prizes. For winning inspiration and creative
competitions, check out her blog at superlucky.me
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its and bobs
...............................
Secrets of the pavilion:
Anatomy of a room: The Saloon
Part 4: “Of superior taste and costliness” - The final scheme from 1823
From at least 1815, the designer and artist Robert
Jones became one of the most important creative
forces in the decorative scheme of the Royal Pavilion.
He was responsible for many rooms, including
the final Saloon scheme of 1823. In the last of our
series on this room I would like to give readers an
impression of how the room looked when Jones
decorated it and a taste of what visitors can expect
to see again soon. A significant current restoration
project aims to recreate Jones’ scheme. As part of
this restoration, extensive re-silvering and re-gilding
on the wall ornaments has already been carried out.
The badly tarnished wallpaper will be replaced by
a replica of the original stencilled silver-on-white
design, while the Chinese export wallpaper that was
on the wall cartouches will be replaced by red silk
hangings - currently being woven by Humphries
Weaving Company in Sudbury, Suffolk - that can be
seen in an aquatint from 1826 from Nash’s Views.
There are also plans to create a copy of the multicoloured
Axminster carpet, originally designed by
Jones, of which two design drawings and a large
fragment, the latter regrettably badly faded, survive.
The design for the carpet has been prepared by
Royal Pavilion artist and conservator Anne Sowden
and will be made by the Axminster factory.
Despite many changes to the structure of the
Pavilion, the Saloon still forms the centre of what
is an essentially symmetrical building and retains
its internal shape and dimensions from when it was
built in 1787. As I have shown in previous issues
of Viva Brighton, the room went through at least
three different decorative schemes, including an
early neo-classical scheme by Biagio Rebecca and
strongly coloured Chinoiserie schemes by John and
Frederick Crace, before the Prince Regent decided
on a near-complete redecoration of the interiors
following the great transformation of the exterior
by John Nash from 1815 onwards.
The scheme by Jones, which was implemented
shortly after George was finally crowned King in
1821, has often been described as a regal style, more
suitable for a newly crowned King, but while it lacks
the irreverent playfulness of the Banqueting Room
and Music Room, it is certainly lavish, daring and
impressive. In one of the earliest complete descriptions
of the interiors (llustrations of her Majesty’s
Palace at Brighton, 1838) the author Edward Brayley
compared it to the earlier schemes and comments
that it was ‘conceived and executed in a style of far
superior taste and costliness than have been previously
exhibited’.
The essential colour scheme was white, gold, silver
and crimson. Silver in particular was used most
lavishly and creatively, and is not often found in
British historic interiors in such quantity. Silver leaf
was used at low and high level on the wallpaper,
cornices, capitals, apse ceilings, and on wooden
pilasters around the room. It was applied to a variety
Japanned Saloon door © Royal Pavilion & Museums
....18....

its and bobs
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of materials, such as stuccoed plaster, paper, metal
and wood, frequently in combination with gilding
and contrasting with wall hangings, draperies and
upholstered furniture in ‘His Majesty’s Geranium
and gold colour satin decorated with silk gimp’.
Large areas of re-gilding and re-silvering on carved
and stucco work at higher level are already completed,
while all but one of the pilasters and most
of the giltwood frames and gilded crestings have
been removed from site for the restoration work.
The tarnished silver and white wallpaper (an early
twentieth century replacement) has been almost
entirely removed and the Chinese-export wallpaper
(not original to the room) in the wall panels has
been taken down (see Viva Brighton July 2015). The
clouded ceiling on the dome dates from Victorian
times, although Jones’ scheme also included a
painted sky. In 2005, following some water damage,
some of the silvered ornamentation from Jones’s
original scheme was discovered in the south apse. A
decision was made to secure the original element, a
silver palm leaf, and re-create Jones’s design in the
south apse, while leaving the rest of the Victorian
ceiling untouched. If you look carefully you can
make out the original leaf in the south apse.
While there are hundreds of Pavilion-related
design drawings by the Craces, very few drawings
by Jones survive, but there is one in the Royal
Pavilion archives that shows an unexecuted design
for the Saloon, with shaded lilac wallpaper above
the overdoors. Jones’s account book entries reveal
his attention to decorative detail (often with the
aim to appear realistic or imitate exotic materials
and objects) and a penchant for shimmering and
reflective paint effects, resulting in a distinctive and
imaginative style.
Apart from balancing the colour scheme of the
Saloon with the newly created Banqueting Room
and Music Room, and the desire to create a more
regal look for this central space, the inspiration for
this interior may also have come from a room that
was about to disappear. The redecoration of the Saloon
coincided with the plans for the demolition of
Carlton House, George’s London palace, which had
for a while been structurally unstable. At Carlton
House the so-called Circular Room boasted one of
the grandest and most lavishly decorated interiors.
It is possible that George instructed Jones to make
decorative references to it in his Brighton Saloon
scheme. The scheme as it appears in 1817 shows
striking similarities to Jones’ design scheme for the
Pavilion Saloon, such as the sky ceiling, the general
layout and columnisation of the room, the combination
of reflective metal surfaces on one object or
in close proximity (bronze, silver, gold), and, most
importantly, silvered cornices and capitals. The
colour scheme was a combination of orange, pale
blue, red, black, green and silver.
Was George’s intention to recreate in the Royal
Pavilion one of his favourite rooms of his beloved
London residence he knew would not be there for
much longer? It seems more than likely. The Circular
Room in Carlton House is certainly one of the
great lost British interiors. Likewise, the restoration
of the Saloon design by Robert Jones in the Royal
Pavilion will recreate a similarly great interior that
we almost lost.
Alexandra Loske, Art Historian and Curator
Saloon 1823, © Royal Pavilion & Museums
....19....

its and bobs
...............................
magazine of thE month: the white review
Can a magazine that only prints
1,500 copies of each issue be
called a success? (Yes.) Can a
magazine that has long-form
essays, reviews, interviews
and poems make it in this
140-character world? (Yes.) Is
there any point even stocking
such a thing in a shop? (Yes!)
Shouldn’t magazines like this
just be in galleries? (No.)
How can we be so sure of
ourselves? Simple. Since we
opened our shop, the number
of people buying copies of
The White Review has doubled and continues to
increase. Some people rush in with delight when
a new issue is released, willing to put in the extra
time to reap the rewards of the outstanding writing,
the beautiful illustrations and the great design. Of
course, it helps us know we are right when the New
York Times describes The White Review as ‘growing
in stature’ and Deborah Levy describes it as ‘nothing
less than a cultural revolution’.
Issue 14, published in August,
includes interviews with author
Rachel Cusk, artist and
film-maker Mark Leckey, essays
about Madrid and stories
by Joanna Kavenna and more.
(How can you resist a short story
by Owen Booth called I Told You
I’d Buy You Anything You Wanted
So You Asked For A Submarine
Fleet?) On top of all that, there’s
a really fine essay about the author
of the cult book The Dice
Man that unravels who ‘Luke
Rhinehart’ actually was, and so
much about this book that tells the story of someone
who lives their life by continually letting the
die choose one of six possible options for action.
It’s a serious thing, The White Review. Celebrities
don’t exist in its pages. The reader has to do some
of the work. It refuses to wash over you. Isn’t that
wonderful? Many people think so - and I’m certainly
one of them.
Martin Skelton, MagazineBrighton, Trafalgar Street
toilet graffito #8
Penny for your thoughts!
Our toilet correspondant, Fan Fan,
returns this month with this philosophical
graffito (which a second scrawler has
found too challenging). But in which pub
did she find it?
Last month’s answer: The Mash Tun.
Thanks to Fiona Hilary Ward (@artisthis)
who tweeted saying she’d spotted
the mystery ‘Alberto’ (seemingly a black
cat) painted on the wall of Artschism on
Gloucester Road about two years ago.
....21....

its and bobs
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goodmoney competition winners
Brighton-based social enterprise Goodmoney CIC recently ran
a competition in these pages for young people to design greetings
cards inspired by what they love about Brighton & Hove.
These greetings cards will be available to buy alongside a new
gift voucher that supports independent businesses in Brighton
& Hove. The four winning artists, chosen by a panel of judges
including our Art Director Katie Moorman, are: Nola Player
and Elijah Oakeshott in the Under 8s category and Rio Carroll
and Daisy Stansfield (pictured) in the 8-12 age group.
The winners and their families are invited to Goodmoney’s
launch event on 24th September, where they’ll be presented with
their prizes. This will also be the first time the gift vouchers will be available to buy, and will be a celebration
of independent Brighton & Hove. The event is open to the public and you can reserve your free place on
their website, goodmoney.co.uk. After their launch, the gift vouchers will be available to buy online and in
selected local stockists. The vouchers can be spent with a wide range of our best independent businesses;
from shops to eateries, sports clubs, kids clubs, local artists and more. Over 100 businesses have joined
already, with more joining by the day. Goodmoney gift vouchers are a great way for people to give the
best of Brighton & Hove as a gift, and give independent businesses a welcome boost.
⨀ 一 攀 眀 挀 甀 琀 漀 洀 攀 爀 猀 漀 渀 氀 礀 ⸀ 倀 氀 攀 愀 猀 攀 焀 甀 漀 琀 攀 ᠠ 嘀 䤀 䈀 ᤠ

eeze up
to the Downs
kids go
FREE!
See leaflets
for details
77
You can now breeze up to Stanmer
Park and Devil’s Dyke by bus
seven days a week, and up to
Ditchling Beacon at weekends.
For times, fares, leaflets and walk ideas,
go to www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/breezebuses
or call 01273 292480
Or visit www.traveline.info/se
to plan all your journeys.
5480

CALLING ALL SUPERHEROES
SEE THE DARK KNIGHT RISES BATSUIT
AT BRIGHTON MUSEUM
& ART GALLERY
FROM 18 AUGUST TO
20 SEPTEMBER 2015
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery
brightonmuseums.org.uk
Open Tue-Sun 10am-5pm
Open Bank Holiday Monday
Admission fee payable
Members and Residents free
Tel 03000 290900
Image by Eva Rinaldi
BATMAN’S IN TOWN

photography
..........................................
Jean-Luc Brouard
Behind the catwalk
The fashion runway show is
one of the most heavily choreographed
and elaborate
showcases out there. For
most, the image we see is
the polished and composed
model on the runway. Here,
as part of Miniclick’s regular
photo feature, Brighton-resident
photographer Jean-Luc
Brouard shows us another
side. Taking us backstage he
remains calm amongst all
the chaos…
How long have you been
working fashion shows? I’ve been shooting in a
working capacity at fashion shows for about five
years now. I have shot them for fun or personal
work for more like seven. I’d go along to meet up
with friends who were working on them (make-up
artists, models, production and so on) so it just
started from there.
Are you specifically asked to do backstage
work, or is that something you’re naturally attracted
to? I do now tend to get asked to specifically
shoot backstage, thankfully. I’ve done runway
before but now I only do it under duress! I’m definitely
more interested in the backstage element of
the shows. I’m not great at waiting in one place,
I don’t have a long lens and I really like working
with flash, so shooting from the runway pit isn’t
really for me. Also I like to try and get shots that
don’t look like everyone else’s, there’s a lot more
scope for that backstage than front of house.
These seem like quite hectic, stressful places,
yet your images are quite calm and considered.
How difficult is it to remain
calm and focus on your work
when you’re in the middle of
it all? Backstage can be really
hectic, especially at bigger London
shows. Sometimes there’s
20 or 30 other people trying to
shoot the 20 or 30 people trying
to dress, finish and check the
models before they walk. Usually
all in cramped spaces. It’s
fairly easy to stay calm, though,
as I enjoy the pace of it. I just
always try to be polite: after
all the person who just trod on
your foot is trying to do their job, too. The few
times I get stressed are when I’m about to get a
shot and someone else sees you’ve seen something
and jumps in front to shoot it themselves!
A lot of your backstage work hides the subjects’
faces, behind clothes, wigs, in shadow or
behind the hundreds of hands trying to fix the
hair and make-up. Are you looking out for this
on purpose, or is that just a coincidence? I do
look for that a lot. Not always with success! I always
keep an eye on the background of people and
what they’re adding or detracting from the shot.
At times you can pre-empt it and place yourself
for the shot you want, other times it’s almost on
instinct. It’s my eye and my finger on the shutter
that’s in charge of when to shoot in these cases.
The brain kind of lags behind. Interview by Jim
Stephenson of Miniclick miniclick.co.uk
jeanlucbrouard.com. Miniclick celebrate their fifth
birthday with a whole day of events on Sept 12th
at the The Unitarian Church, New Road.
....25....

photography
...............................
....26....

photography
...............................
....27....

photography
...............................
....29....

column
...........................................
Amy Holtz
The truth is, I’m a Minnesotan
My partner is going to (not
so) Secret Cinema in London.
It’s The Empire Strikes Back.
Being born in the 80s has relieved
me of fanatical Wookieworship,
and it’s the reason
I’m 80 Galactic Credits better
off and not searching for the
perfect rebel fighter gloves to
go with my faction scarf.
My partner though, was born
in the 70s. ‘If you don’t get the
scarf,’ he explains, ‘then the
other rebels won’t ask you to fight with them and
the whole thing would be pointless.’
I feel like suggesting, at this juncture, pointless is a
fairly accurate description even without the scarf,
but horses for courses. Instead, I posit the theory
that the Galactic Empire* has grown increasingly
infatuated with commercialism and that the
Cantina’s new craft beer fridge should have been
the first warning.
‘The appearance of craft beer at Mos Eisley* is a
good thing, though, because it means the Empire’s
economy is stabilising and people can buy new
face scarves when the purges turn all of the planets
into poisonous wastelands.’
He frowns. He senses a feminist argument in the
Type 1 atmosphere*.
‘There are loads of us going,’ he reminds me,
swiping across to the next page of suede over-theknee
boots.
Except me, I think. Then, unexpectedly, I get that
feeling you get on a Sunday when you’ve been
dreaming about chickens all morning and some
pushy so-and-so who
stole the bartender’s eye
mere seconds before you
is ordering the last of the
chicken roasts.
His fingers hover over
sand-camo ‘knee armour’.
Knee-pads, I translate.
‘Can I look?’
‘No.’ Swipe... swipe.
‘How come?’
‘Because you’re not part of
the Rebel Alliance.’ Well,
isn’t that just the story of my life. I sit back, frown.
He shifts so I have to watch the swiping over his
shoulder. I’ll look at Vanity Fair, I think, glancing at
Taylor Swift in a suit. There’s an article on Botox,
Tinder AND Chelsea Clinton - hours of fun.
But my eyes keep straying back to the screen.
Even though I really, really want to see Taylor’s
photo spread.
‘You should get some trading crystals,’ I say,
pointing.
He ignores me.
On the next page, there are starfighter jumpsuits.
I’m envisioning him, in that, space-cocktail drunk.
‘Do you think,’ I begin casually, ‘that you’ll be
wearing this home?’
He shrugs. He’s moved on to the baseball scores.
My fingers are itching to go back to the Empire’s
superstore. I don’t even like fancy dress. But exclusion
is a powerful, unconscious persuasion.
‘If I come with, what are the chances they’ll let me
be Han Solo?’
*Don’t be silly. Of course I googled this.
....30....

column
...........................................
John Helmer
Ibsen and me
Illustration by Joda, jonydaga.weebly.com
‘Is this your first visit to Grimstad?’ Tall and
twenty-something, Cedrik is our guide for the
Ibsen tour that my family has allowed me to
inflict on them. The playwright lived in this little
harbour town when he was young, and wrote his
first play here.
‘I’ve never been to Norway before,’ I tell him,
‘but my great-grandfather was born in Grimstad.’
‘Oh yes, I know about the Helmers.’
I do a double take.
‘There were only 800 people in Grimstad at the
time,’ explains Cedrik who, it turns out, is a bit
of a local historian. He is keen to share what he
knows, and since we modern Helmers are the
only people who have signed up for the tour, the
rest of it takes on a bit of a theme.
‘… So this is where Ibsen lived – in a
house owned by one of your relatives.
He was an apothecary, but always away
at sea ...’ These were useful absences.
The role of apothecary in those
days involved dispensing wine and
spirits, and my relative’s long sea
trips allowed Ibsen, his assistant,
to turn the place into party central
for bohemian youth. Everyone
back to Henrik’s. I picture a crowd
of whacked-out hipsters (one of
whom, it transpires, was a further
relative) in velvet jackets, slooshing
back the pharmaceutical hooch.
Ibsen also liked to go at it during the
day, getting high on his own supply
as he neglected the business and
cracked on with what was to
be the first in a long line of world-class gloomy
dramas.
Cedrik lets us into the house, which is being restored.
There’s not much to see. I look across the
street to the doll’s house of a place we’re staying
at, called Café Ibsen. ‘Do you think he actually
went there?’ I ask.
‘Certainly not: it didn’t serve alcohol.’
I’ve always known there was some sort of Ibsen
connection, but the stories were vague. Besides
which, all family history projects are to some
extent self-aggrandising, and about as interesting
to listen to as other people’s dreams. ‘Even people
in the same family aren’t interested in them,’
quips son Freddy when I try to tell him later
about ours. ‘—There: comedy gold; put that in
your column.’
So he never hears the last bit of the story.
I’ve brought a book to Grimstad, a town ledger
from 1897 that has come down through the family.
Cedrik’s eyes grow round when I pull it out
of my IKEA backpack. There is a chapter headed
‘Helmer’, and though the text is in Norwegian,
you can clearly see the name Henrik Ibsen in one
of the footnotes. ‘What’s that all about?’
Cedrik translates. The footnote concerns a third
relative, whose story might or might not have inspired
a famous poem of Ibsen’s called Terje Vigen.
He was arrested by the British Navy for breaking
the blockade of Grimstad during the Napoleonic
wars – rowing to Denmark and back for supplies.
They banged him up in Reading Gaol.
Drug landlord … Pisshead … Jailbird: what a
heritage.
I feel suitably aggrandised.
....31....

column
......................................
Chloë King
In loco parentis
I turn to Mr, making a face
not unlike that emoji our
Swedish students would text
when their bus was late. I
had to poll my friends to
find out what that ‘toothy
grin’ emoji meant - ‘grimace’;
‘excitement’; ‘slight
fear’; ‘anxiety’; ‘smiling
through pain’.
“They have my blog address,
my Twitter handle,
my Instagram… I’ve replied
Illustration by Chloë King
chocolate buttons off their
bedroom floor pleased me
no end. I needed my preconceptions
busting.
We’re expecting two boys
next, a German and an
Italian, but then I get emails
from two Austrian females,
and a friend request from
one of their fathers. It’s sent
me into panic.
“I feel uncomfortable,” I tell
the school. “I don’t want to
personally to their emails. Does he want to see be unfriendly, but my Facebook account is about
pictures of that time in 2008 I got so drunk I had as personal as the underwear on my washing line. I
half my hair shaved off? Would anyone want their want you to come to my house in order to see it.”
teenage daughter to stay with a woman who, at any The young woman on the end of the line - clearly
point in her past, had shaved her head?”
regretting the huge quantity of calls she made
Mr looks at me saying: “I told you so,” with his encouraging me to sign up has been matched 1:1
eyes and “this is what you signed up for, fool,” with by queries from me – replies patiently, “you can
his mouth.
change your privacy…”
We’re taking part in a fast-track course in ‘Hosting ***
International Students’, you see. So far we’ve been The night the girls are due, Mr and I tidy all evening.
in loco parentis to two fifteen-year-old Swedes for Julia and Leonie arrive at a time of night that renders
three weeks. That was easy, once we got over the my offer of a jacket potato downright bizarre. Few
shock of their arrival - we had just 24 hours warning
they were coming.
I’m brushing my teeth when the door goes again.
words are said then they hurry off to bed.
I spent the whole day doing housework, paranoid I hear Mr answer it, and a girl introduces herself
over my prejudice that all Scandinavians are scrupulously
clean. Mopping the pool of water that gathers have the wrong address. “CHLOë!” he calls up
as Julia. Mr says we already have a Julia; she must
under our sink, I thought it equivalent to seeing a the stairs and I come down in time to see Julia 2
squat toilet for the first time. The sort of thing that crumple. Her arms reach out, clutching onto a
makes you think, “how do people live like this?” dining chair. “THIS ISN’T PEACEHAVEN?” she
before you realise you are one of those people. cries, sobbing loudly. I look at Julia, then the taxi
Turns out I was half-right about the Swedish. driver, then my husband, smiling through gritted
They take lots of showers, but having to scrape teeth. “I think I’d better call the school.”
....32....

column
.............................
Lizzie Enfield
Notes from North Village
“Look, there’s loads of Prime Ministers!” My
daughter, then aged about four, was very excited
by this collective of political leaders.
I looked in the direction she was pointing and saw
a gaggle of HSBC staff on the pavement outside
their offices, having a fag and coffee break.
“Where?”
“There.” She’s pointing at the bank staff.
“But they’re not prime ministers.”
“Yes, they are. They’re wearing prime ministers’
outfits.”
By this she meant suits. So dressed down were all
the people in her life that the only time she’d seen
a man in a suit, it was the Prime Minister (Blair at
the time) on the news. Brighton pretty much operates
on the principle that every day is dress-down
Friday, and neither parent has a job that requires
much in the way of dressing up.
In another life I used to dress up for a proper job
(as a BBC journalist) and I still have the clothes
to show for it. But being a freelance
writer, working from home most of
the time, they don’t get much of an
airing.
I do like to give them one, occasionally,
given the opportunity,
mind. The trouble
is the opportunities
that present themselves
have mostly involved interviewing
people even
more dressed down
than the denizens of the
North Village.
The most mismatched
I’ve ever been was going
to interview Larry Hagman,
a short time before he died. He was JR in
Dallas, of course.
Interviewing JR was an opportunity to pull out a
BBC dress and jacket from the back of the wardrobe,
if ever there was one. I met him in the London
hotel he’d arrived at after flying in from Texas
(or wherever it is he actually lives) the night before.
I was suitably smart. He was a bit jet-lagged,
had just got up and was still in his dressing gown
and pyjamas.
I’ve never felt so overdressed.
“Better than being underdressed,” said a friend
who is an award-winning TV producer.
The thing with award-winning producers, at least
the ones I know, is they never expect to win the
awards. So they turn up at ceremonies expecting
to skulk at the back rather than having
to parade in front of the cameras
in a suit and… trainers.
“I thought my feet would stay under
the table,” he said afterwards, just
as another person (I happen to live
with) thought all of him would stay
off camera, when he was nominated
for an award and told he had to wear
black tie.
“Can’t I just wear a jacket and tie?”
“No. If the invite says black tie then
you should wear black tie.”
He ended up sitting two seats away
from Kevin Spacey. Thank God for
the last minute dash to Moss Bros,
I thought, as I watched him appear
on the telly looking so smart as to be
virtually unrecognizable.
“Nice Prime Minister’s outfit,” we
told him after.
Illustration by Joda, jonydaga.weebly.com
....33....

history
..........................................
Sir Victor Barker’s secret past
WW1 hero, or lady landworker?
Valerie Barker had been tomboyish long before
she had met Ernest Pearce Crouch, and fallen
for him, and had two kids with him, and watched
him lose his job on a national newspaper and
start drinking too much.
But it was Pearce Crouch who, without meaning
to, pushed her further in that direction; dangerously
far, in fact. The final provocation was the
time he grabbed her by the hair and hit her in
front of her best friend. She decided to start a
new life as a man. This was autumn 1923, around
September.
It was partly an empowerment thing, an economic-opportunity
thing, of course. But it was also
a chance for a female Littlehampton farmer to
enter Brighton high society.
Having kicked Pierce Crouch out, she was left
with her freedom, a home, and a way to make a
living. She could have just renamed herself Mr
Barker and carried on tending the farm, and
“would no doubt have got away with it forever,”
her biographer Rose Collis says. But that wasn’t
enough for her.
On October 15, 1923, Valerie Barker cycled to
Ford railway station, and boarded a train. She
got out at Brighton as Colonel Sir Victor Barker,
a baronet and First World War hero with an abdominal
wound, a Distinguished Service Order,
and some impressive war stories.
“I guess it’s a kind of madness, isn’t it? It is
hugely risky,” says Mark Bunyan, who’s written a
musical-theatre biopic of Barker. “But I think she
can see the good lives that she could have if she
were a man, and just goes for that.”
Barker had prepared carefully, smoking a ‘continuous
chain of cigarettes… to coarsen my voice,’
roughening the skin around her chin, strapping
her chest down, getting hold of the right medals,
and making sure her hair and all her clothes were
correct. “She wasn’t wearing ladies’ underwear,
because that would have changed how she felt,”
Collis says. “Nothing was left to chance.” But she
was still nervous when she first presented herself
at the reception desk of the The Grand.
‘The manager, staff and guests all accepted me
without question. In [the] lounge and bar I was
greeted as a good fellow. I smoked and drank
with the male guests, and paid little courtly attentions
to the womenfolk. As the weeks slipped
by, I began to experience a sense of exhilaration
that I was “getting away with it”’.
Having ‘discovered that boldness was the best
way to allay suspicion,’ in her own words,
‘Colonel’ Barker swam in the hotel pool, went
horseriding, mingled in high society, and did
some acting for the Brighton Repertory Company.
She even got married.
Elfrida Haward, her best friend from Littlehampton,
apparently believed Barker’s explanation
about an abdominal war wound which had
forced ‘him’ to live as a woman previously. And
Elfrida’s parents believed it too, or believed it
enough to worry about the family’s reputation,
as she and Barker were sharing a room at the
Grand. They pressured Barker to do the gentlemanly
thing.
The wedding was at St Peter’s Church on November
14th, 1923. It’s not clear what happened
on the honeymoon, but both women always
denied any lesbian tendencies, and Collis thinks
....34....

they were telling the truth. “In the
whole book I didn’t say Barker was a
lesbian because she wasn’t… I think
it was a very asexual persona, it was
like, ‘this is how I’m happy living, in
this gender role.’”
And Barker was good at playing the
role, Collis adds. She was “six-foot
tall and pretty broad”, with impressive
knowledge of “what was expected
of a gentleman, how to speak
to people, what wine went with what
food, and how a gentleman would
dress”. Most importantly, “it was
the confidence with which she did
it. I think that’s the key to this. ‘Of
course I’m Sir Victor Barker!’”
But the money started running
out, and she left the Grand, and
Brighton. ‘Sir Victor’ moved around
a lot, trying to make money through
acting, dealing antiques, running a
cafe, working as a hotel receptionist,
and brief spells of manual work. Elfrida
left him. He got involved with a
British fascist group. And he carried
on spending too much.
“Then, of course, it all unravelled,”
Collis says. “Barker was brilliant at
getting away with living as a man,
but hopeless with money. And that
was his or her downfall.” She was arrested
in February 1929 over a £103
debt, and in prison, as Bunyan puts
it, “a routine strip search revealed
Photo courtesy of Rose Collis
things that were far from routine.”
The revelation, and subsequent court case, provoked vast press
coverage, and public outrage. The novelist Radclyffe Hall called
Barker ‘a mad pervert of the most undesirable type,’ and the
judge at the Old Bailey was equally scathing.
“The fact it ended up at the Old Bailey was extraordinary,
because the charge was falsifying a marriage certificate,” Collis
says. “To end up as a major trial… That’s how seriously it was
taken in those days, it really was. ‘You have offended God’s laws
and we’re going to punish you for it.’”
After nine months in prison, Barker carried on living as a man,
moving around, working various jobs, and continuing to get in
trouble over money. At one point, she was reduced to appearing
in a freakshow in Blackpool. However, neither Bunyan nor Collis
think of it as a particularly tragic story. Bunyan says: “I don’t
think it’s ever a tragedy when someone makes a go of it - has an
amazing go of it. And she did.” Steve Ramsey
With thanks to Mark Bunyan and Rose Collis, whose book is
called Colonel Barker’s Monstrous Regiment
....35....

Photo by Adam Bronkhorst
....36....

interview
..........................................
mybrighton: Nicky Röhl
Moshimo co-owner and Costume Games Festival Director
Are you local? I grew up in Kingston near Lewes.
My dad moved there in the mid-sixties, at the same
time as lots of other lecturers at the new University
of Sussex. The village was built for them: they were
all the same sort of age, and came from similar
backgrounds, and had kids at the same time… and
many split up at the same time too! It was truly a
unique time and place to grow up… very experimental
in its way; it would make a good subject for
an anthropological study of life in the seventies.
Why did you locate Moshimo in Brighton? We
set up our first restaurant in London in 1994, and
rapidly opened two more successful branches there.
For our fourth we wanted to show potential investors
that a sushi bar could work outside of London,
and Brighton was the obvious choice: we knew it,
and it was being touted as London-by-the-Sea…
But it wasn’t quite like that! When we opened in
2000 it was a real struggle because people were still
very suspicious of sushi. It’s amazing to think how
the culinary scene has changed since then.
So when did you move here? In 2000. Like many
people we found living in London with kids was
unaffordable. I hadn’t ever got to know Brighton
that well, in spite of growing up in the area. My
view of the place was as a scuzzy sort of town,
skewed by the fact that I had mostly visited it on
a Friday or a Saturday night as a teenager, but as I
started coming down here to build the restaurant,
I discovered what a fantastic place it is – except for
the centre of town on Friday and Saturday nights,
which is still pretty grim.
Can you recommend any other restaurants,
beside your own? The problem with restaurants
is that one bad experience and you go off them. My
favourite used to be [names city centre pub] but
one night before Christmas it was too cold there,
and the phone kept ringing and ringing, and it took
forever to be served. I haven’t been there again. We
should all be more forgiving: restaurants are like
theatres: there are lots of factors involved in getting
it right, and sometimes you just have a bad night.
Do you go to the pub much? Not that often any
more, but I love real ales. I like the Evening Star.
How would you spend a perfect Sunday afternoon?
I prefer to work seven shorter days than
five full ones, so I try to make every late afternoon
a Sunday afternoon, hanging out with my kids, or
swimming in the sea…
Do you do much exercise? I’m a year-round
swimmer. There’s a group of us that aims to swim
every day. It’s interesting: I know people in that
group better than I would if I met them down the
pub every day, from the different ways they confront
the challenge of getting into the water.
Do you think Brighton has changed for the
better while you’ve lived here? In many ways, but
not in others. Brighton used to be full of underutilised
spaces, like the car park with weeds growing
out of it where they built the Jubilee Library.
Nowadays every space possible is exploited in some
way. I miss the rubble, and the city’s unselfconscious
charm. But the food and coffee is definitely better!
Why have you ‘converted’ the Brighton-Japan
Festival into the Costume Games? I wanted a
festival that was relevant to more people. In this festival
we’re throwing together real people who like
getting dressed up with leading costume designers
from the film industry, and mixing it up. And where
better to do something like that than Brighton? AL
The Costume Games, 16th-20th September,
thecostumegames.com
....37....

Open
daily
from
12pm
DJ’s
Bands
Cocktails
Photo Booth
Areas to reserve
Local beers & ales
Sea facing terrace
Free high speed WiFi
www.patternsbrighton.com
10 Marine Parade, Brighton, BN2 1TL

local musicians
..........................................
These Animal Men
Beautifully flawed
Brighton band These
Animal Men had a
brief but controversial
stint in the 90s,
finding themselves
on Top of the Pops and
championed by the
NME, but imploded
before the end of
the decade. Now the
band has reformed
for a one-off gig
in London for the
launch of a new documentary (charting their demise)
called Flawed Is Beautiful. We spoke to the one
they used to call Hooligan.
How well do you think the film captures what
went on? The film catches it all. We were lucky
enough by accident or design to be in the eye of
the culture storm at the time. We were loud and
fundamental in our views, which meant we were
both lauded and hunted like animals. This made for
interesting times and most of it was caught by the
camera. The director Adam Foley’s talent for storytelling
makes the film a testament to the times.
What was the band trying to achieve? We had
the colour and the noise and it didn’t represent the
order of the time so this lit all the fireworks. We
were pilloried for being cartoons but the truth of it
was that we really were like that. Fame and careers
were no driving factor at all.
What, if anything, did you do wrong? Everything!
As it should be…
Is there a contradiction between what the band
were about and the inevitable nostalgia involved
in making a film 20 years later? Contradiction is
maybe the wrong word. A desperate desire not to
mess with our twentysomething
selves. A
cynical deathwish is to
be avoided at all costs.
What was the music
scene in Brighton like
when you started?
There were plenty of
great bands in Brighton
in the late 80s and early
90s. We had the ‘riot
grrrl’ scene associated
with Huggy Bear, I
think a landmark in music. It felt like a graphic
novel come to life, a major influence on us. The
band Spitfire lived it how they strutted it. Brighton
had all the rogues you could shake a stick at in
those days.
These Animal Men once played a gig in my
school canteen in Shoreham. How did that
happen? We put on a tour of schools in protest at
young people being excluded from licensed concert
venues. We were forced to cancel them all except
yours. An English storm over nothing (a stink over
the Speedking single rhetoric). We fought on too
many fronts and had our Stalingrad. Glad the one
gig left was in Shoreham.
What exactly happened at Phoenix Festival in
1994? The film tells the story of that year in UK
music culminating in the festival. Suffice to say it
was a Battle of Waterloo with the forces of love and
total contempt fighting it out to the death. Who
won is still up for debate. You will have to see it to
understand. Interview by Ben Bailey
These Animal Men are playing at Heaven in London
on 11 September alongside S*M*A*S*H and a
screening of the film. flawedisbeautiful.com
....39....

Gigs In Brighton...
MARK LANEGAN
Wednesday 2nd September
Concorde 2
OUTFIT
Wednesday 9th September
The Hope
NIMMO
Thursday 17th September
The Green Door Store
KID WAVE
Friday 18th September
Sticky Mike’s
BROTHER AND BONES
Tuesday 22nd September
Komedia
GIRL FRIEND
Wednesday 23rd September
The Hope
SUMMER CAMP
Friday 25th September
Bleach
JENN GRANT
Sunday 27th September
The Prince Albert
5 Sep Mini Maker Faire
10 - 11 Sep Fake it ‘Til You Make It
19 Sep SPECTRUM
19 Sep Bring Your Own
Beamer
19 Sep Seun Kuti & Egypt 80
22 - 26 Sep Avenue Q
6 Oct Shobana Jeyasingh
Dance
RHODES
Tuesday 29th September
Komedia
RAG ‘N’ BONE MAN
Tuesday 29th September
Concorde 2
BEN OTTEWELL
Tuesday 29th September
Komedia Studio
NEW MOTION
Wednesday 30th September
Komedia Studio
@LoutPromotions
LoutPromotions.co.uk
01273 709709
brightondome.org

local musicians
..........................................
Ben Bailey rounds up the Brighton music scene
TOGETHER THE PEOPLE
Sat 5 & Sun 6, Preston Park, 12pm, £75
What’s that?
A weekend in
Brighton with no
festival? Luckily,
local promoters
One Inch Badge
have plugged the
gap with a brand
new open-air weekender in Preston Park. Whilst
offering an impressive array of headliners for a
first-time festival (Super Furry Animals, Billy Bragg,
Roots Manuva, etc), TTP also seems like a genuinely
homegrown event with locally-sourced food
and drink and a ‘soapbox stage’ dedicated to local
charities and community groups. Brighton music
is well represented too: from The Levellers and
Brakes to up-and-comers like Normanton Street,
MOK, Verity Sessions and Wild Cat Strike.
ANAL BEARD
Sat 12, Prince Albert, 8pm, £5
Even if you’ve never heard their music, you’ve
probably heard the name. It’s not easily forgotten.
Having peddled their peculiar brand of comedic
punk since the 90s, the Beard are finally calling it
a day with a blowout farewell show at one of the
only venues in town that was around when the band
began. Over discordant thrash and end-of-the-pier
keyboard ditties, the band’s two frontmen will no
doubt be doing their best terrible dancing whilst
bickering about crappy holiday camps and obsessive
record collectors. As if to prove their point, they’ve
put together a 108-track compilation to mark the
occasion. Support comes from fellow musical buffoons
The Lovely Brothers.
NICE WEATHER FOR AIRSTRIKES
Fri 18 – Sun 20, The Haunt, 7pm, £25
After five years at the
Druids, Brighton’s
annual post-rock
festival has found a
new home. Branching
out to embrace
ambient and cinematic
sounds alongside their usual anchor of guitar noise,
NWfA has booked Brooklyn loopist Julianna
Barwick (pictured) and minimalist cellist Jo Quail
whilst welcoming back northern post rockers Her
Name Is Calla. There are plenty more acts still to
be announced, but so far Written In Waters and
Speak Galactic are heading up the local contingent.
That an operatic diva can sit comfortably on the
same bill as a wig-out krautrock trio tells you all
you need to know about the diverse scope of the
festival’s line-up.
RAG‘N’BONE MAN
Tues 29, Concorde 2, 7pm, £10
Though an unlikely candidate
for the role of a mainstream
soul singer, it looks like
Rag’n’Bone Man might just pull
it off. With a songwriting style
that’s grounded in classic blues
and soul, but bolstered by the
production values of hip hop, this guy makes music
that’s radio-friendly in the best possible way. It also
helps that he has one hell of a voice. This night is
part of a series of curated shows he’s putting on at
various venues around the UK, starting off in his
hometown. He’ll be performing alongside his handpicked
support of Tiggs Da Author and Òlah Bliss.
....41....

digital festival
...........................
Digi-Fears
A world ruled by robots?
From dystopian novels to the Frank Zappa rock
opera which features a ‘nuclear-powered Pan-
Sexual Roto-Plooker’, the idea of intelligent robots
has habitually intrigued, worried and inspired artists.
“Well, it’s the uncanny, isn’t it?” says Lorenza
Ippolito. “Something that is close to our perception,
our idea of ourselves. It’s near us but it’s not.
There’s that kind of double take, I think.”
With fellow artist Cici Blumstein, Ippolito is curating
two ‘Digi-Fears’ events in September, the first
of which is a panel discussion called: ‘A new world
has begun! The rule of Robots!’
Lorenza: My idea is just having the time during the
Digital Festival to sit down and chew the fat about
what robots are and what they could be, and maybe
also take into consideration dystopian ideas and
fears about robots, and the fact that they could take
over the world. I was just interested in seeing what
people think.
Cici: I’m intrigued by what ever-more sophisticated
robots elicit from humans. Like maybe feelings
of possibly being replaced.
Lorenza: It’s interesting, the word robot
comes from a Slav word meaning
slave. So that kind of sets the
intention of what these machines
are, for us, in a way. Or should be,
for us. But at the same time they
might become more clever and
take over.
I’m also interested in the
idea that with every
new technological
advance, we lose a way of thinking. When photography
came into mass usage, the idea of perception
of space and distance changed forever. So how will
robots change our perception of housework… Or
sex workers? They’ve already completely changed
the idea of war making. If you give computers,
algorithms, the power to decide who to kill or who
not to kill, and why, etc, that becomes… that’s a
very interesting subject to discover, to talk about.
Cici: It’s this humanoid kind of appearance, and
capabilities that are being developed ever faster,
combined with the kind of utter machineness that,
once that algorithm is in place, it will do that thing,
whatever that thing is.
It’s that really deep question: ‘What it is to be human?’
You keep knocking up against that when you
talk about robots, because the aim is to get as close
as possible to robots being human in some way, as
convincing as possible. So then, what is that, that
humanness? I think that’s why writers and other
artists are so interested in them. Whereas if robots
were simply boxes that speak…
Lorenza: Our house is already full of machines;
we’ve got washing machines, hoovers…
Cici: But robots always have that extra bit that
makes them somehow, not independent, but having
their own agency. It’s implied somehow. That’s
something that makes them very interesting.
Cici: Will robots rule the world? I hope not. Would
that be an improved world? I don’t think so. SR
‘Digi-fears’ is part of Brighton Digital Festival. Part
I, on robots, Sept 8, Fabrica, 2.30pm. ‘Part II: Help!
Evil Digital Forces Are Trying To Control My
Messy Body’, Sept 26, Onca Gallery, 2pm.
Both free.
....42....

digital festival
.........................................
[Data]Storm
Digital rain dancing
“Basically, [Data]Storm
is a classical ballet
about computer science
theory. There are
particular ideas we’re
looking at, about the
internet, networks, data
transmission, signal
processing, viruses…”
This is Genevieve
Smith-Nunes, a Computing
teacher and dance fan who, as part of her
ongoing efforts to make her subject as fun-andnon-intimidating
as possible, has created two
computer-science ballets.
The first, [Arra]Stre, dealt with “computational
thinking”, binary, algorithms, etc. “All the programmers
that watched it were like, ‘Oh my - I
just saw checking and validating!’”
[Data]Storm follows the travels of a bit of data,
played by one of the dancers. “Data has a pretty
rough journey a lot of the time. It doesn’t go
from my computer to yours; it goes from mine to
15 different servers around the world, and then
ends up on your computer. And also, depending
on where it is, it might use satellite data. So then
it’s got to go through the atmosphere; does that
affect it, the same as electrical storms affect lots of
different signals? It’s really interesting, I love stuff
like this.”
To make it clearer what’s going on, there’ll be
some visual projections based on weather data,
which will serve as a kind of metaphor. “People
understand weather, they know what rain does,
and what storms are, and how they travel across
the world, the same way as data does.
“We’re using weather patterns to create some of
the choreography, so they
actually dance weatherfronts
and things. It’s datadriven
dance, basically.
“We’re using weather and
climate to help people
with the visualisation of
abstract concepts, which
may be quite hard to do.
What is the internet?
What is signal processing?
You can’t really visualise that unless you have some
kind of clue. And we use classical ballet because it’s
a really good way to marry the algorithmic nature
of classical ballet and computer science.”
Eh? “If anyone’s done classical ballet they’ll understand
that it has set sequences, set forms, and
its own language, usually old French. That’s like
the programming language of classical ballet. You
could turn all of those motifs into a programme.
Which is just the choreography, really. It’s very
structured, the same way as programming is…”
The student dancers chosen for [Data]Storm
hadn’t been doing computer science, “but actually
they really like it now. We always explain the little
bit of theory that they’re going to dance. Once
they do more and more movement, and start
dancing, they actually have a physical memory of
the theory; it’s quite interesting.”
It’s hard to imagine how computer science theories
could be danced, especially something like
encryption. But Genevieve says that one’s in the
show. “We might not be able to do it as literally as
you would like, as it might look boring. We’re taking
artistic license with some of it…” Steve Ramsey
[Data]Storm (part of Brighton Digital Festival), The
Old Market, Sept 13, 6:30 pm
....43....

攀 㨀 戀 漀 漀 欀 椀 渀 最 猀 䀀 挀 漀 瀀 瀀 攀 爀 搀 漀 氀 氀 愀 爀 猀 琀 甀 搀 椀 漀 ⸀ 挀 漀 ⸀ 甀 欀 簀 琀 㨀 㜀 㜀 㜀 㔀 㔀 ㈀ 㜀 ㈀ 㜀
䈀 伀 伀 䬀 䤀 一 䜀 匀 伀 一 䰀 䤀 一 䔀

theatre
...........................
Avenue Q
Who would be a puppeteer on Avenue Q?
Avenue Q’s acting-and-singing-and-dancing audition
process is so competitive that no experienced
puppeteer has ever made it into the cast of any of
its professional runs in the UK. You need to be
talented, but also willing to use that talent in a show
for which you’re dressed in grey and you’re trying
to blend into the background, to keep the attention
on the puppet.
You have to fight your actorly instincts, restraining
your movements and facial expressions, expressing
the character’s feelings solely through the puppet.
Which you have to learn to operate - while also
learning to play to the other puppet, not the puppeteer,
which is “a bit like talking to someone but
looking over their shoulder the whole time”.
As there are only four of you, you each have to
learn the lines and songs for two or three characters,
and deal with the fact that some puppets require
two operators. Then there’s the physical strain
of holding your hand up in just the right position,
for long periods, in rehearsal and during performances.
And, if you’re Trekkie Monster, you have to
stand on stage and enthusiastically sing about how
‘The Internet is for Porn’.
But actually, Nigel Plaskett, long-serving puppet
coach for the UK version of Avenue Q, is very
upbeat about the whole thing. The recruits see
learning to act through a puppet as a challenge
rather than an irritation, he says. It is physically demanding,
but they’re given regular physio. Though
the puppets are the stars, it’s the humans that get
the applause at the end. And they get to be part of a
musical which Plaskett says is so good that, though
“I’ve seen it over 200 times now… I do still laugh at
it, and I find that remarkable.”
Given the various challenges involved, why do
it with puppets at all? First of all, of course, it’s
a parody of Sesame street, an affectionate look at
[Sesame Street-type characters] after they’ve gone
out into the real world. That was the starting point.
And yes, I think you can say things with the puppets
that you couldn’t say with actors. There are certain
things you can’t do without the puppets because it’s
physically impossible, and some things you probably
wouldn’t want to do in front of an audience.
Is the sex scene a particular challenge for puppeteers?
Well, not so much a challenge, but… they
can use their imagination at that point, be inventive.
We do try and re-block that scene for each actor.
Do any of the puppeteers get embarrassed
about delivering certain lines to a big audience,
like in ‘The Internet is for Porn? No, not at all.
In fact they enjoy it, because they get such a huge
response. More embarrassed, perhaps, about doing
the sex scene, but they get over that quite quickly
too. At least they’re not doing it themselves. SR
Avenue Q, Tues 22 - Sat 26 Sept, Brighton Dome
Concert Hall
....45....

interview
.........................................
James Naughtie
On life after Today and looking forward to a lie-in
“‘Shambolic’ is the word people often write,”
says James Naughtie, the long-serving Today
programme host. He seems to get characterised
as a lovable, bumbling intellectual: a
deeply knowledgeable Westminster insider and
asker of thoughtful, incisive and long-winded
questions who, in the Radio Times’ words,
‘frequently loses the weather and cannot tell
listeners the correct time’.
I would only add that he’s affable and talkative
and interesting, and we had to reschedule the
interview because he initially sent me his number
with two digits the wrong way round.
“I’m afraid the shambolic adjective is not
entirely unfair. My wife gave me, as a birthday
present, a new device, an app, where you put
tags on things - your keys, wallet and so on - so
you can find them. It was a very thoughtful
thing. But, two days before my birthday, I lost
my phone.
“That side of me is inescapable; it just is the
case. I once left my passport on the wrong
side of the Berlin Wall; I once lost a wallet in
Buenos Aires and the taxi driver drove right
across the city to bring it back… I think people
overdo it, though. John [Humphrys] is always
going on about me chewing my polystyrene
cups in the Today studio, which I maybe did
once or twice.”
Naughtie grew up in a village near Inverness,
and started his career on the Aberdeen Press &
Journal, later working at the Scotsman and the
Guardian. “I loved it, phoning in stories late at
night, writing against deadlines. It’s just who I
am. I never really wanted to do anything else.
“Funnily enough, on Today, when I get in there
at 4am, writing scripts for the programme, I’m
doing what I was doing as a kid journalist in
the 70s. It’s the same thing: ‘What’s important
about this? What’s interesting? What do we
want to find out? What does it mean? What
happens next?’ And I am somebody who’s
always thinking A) why did they do that?, and
B) what happens next?”
Naughtie is “a news junkie”, who is so fascinated
with the human drama of politics that if
you ask him about it, you may get a nineminute
answer.
In this case, the answer took in: How a generation
of politicians have grown up with the idea
that they must never look weak or uncertain,
or change their mind. Why they should be
more open about the limits of their power, the
awkwardness of decision making, and the fact
there are no perfect solutions. And something
a Congressman once told him, that the really
difficult thing isn’t the policy decisions, but
dealing with the fact that playing the game,
and advancing your career, will likely cost you
friendships.
“If you have any contact with people in public
life, you realise that they’ve decided to pay
a heavy price,” Naughtie says. “I think most
people still go into politics for very good
reasons, because there are things they want to
achieve. But who would live a life like that if
they weren’t driven by some desire to get to
somewhere near the top?
“That means it can be a very lonely business,
and self-doubt does come into it. Watching
....46....

interview
.........................................
somebody fall from grace - it’s not a pretty
sight. Whether you think they deserve it or
not, it is sometimes a tragedy being played
out on the stage. I think politics is like that;
it’s not a machine, it’s a human drama, which
is why it’s so fascinating.”
He does acknowledge that presenting Today
gets him close to the centre of that drama.
But then again, he also does classical-music
stuff for the BBC, and has presented Radio
4’s Bookclub since 1998. Is he a hard-nosed
news journalist or is he a sensitive, bookish
opera lover?
“I don’t know that I’m sensitive… I’m a
news person; I love new things, and being
out describing things, telling people what it’s
like to be there. The business of politics just
fascinates me. And I love getting a ringside
seat at important moments.
“But at the same time, I love music, books,
and having a life that isn’t just about who
do you vote for, who do you support, why
are you voting for Jeremy Corbyn or Yvette
Cooper or whoever it happens to be.
“I think if you just do one thing, you get
trapped in a rather tedious world. I enjoy
the different sides of my life. It’s part of my
personality, I suppose. Maybe I’m just a butterfly.
But that’s the way I am, and I couldn’t
really be anything else.
“When I stop presenting Today at the end
of the year, I’ll do different correspondent
roles across Radio 4, broadcast about things
I like, do quite a bit on the constitution in
Scotland and so on, a bit of foreign reporting,
a bit of fireman duty for big stories.
But I’ll also do a lot of culture. So, honestly,
if you’d asked me to write [an ideal] job
description, what is happening to me after
January is exactly what I would say. I’ll be
doing the things that I want to do, but I
won’t be getting up at three in the morning.”
Steve Ramsey
Radio 4 Bookclub, with Tessa Hadley, Fri 25
Sept, 1.30pm, at Charleston, as part of the
Small Wonder festival. For ticket info, see
bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006s5sf. For other
festival tickets, see brightonticketshop.com
....47....

theatre
...........................
Claire Dowie
John Lennon’s still wearing that skirt
Claire Dowie once wrote a play about childbirth
and called it Leaking from Every Orifice. A feminist
humourist and pioneer of ‘stand-up theatre’, she
said in 2013 that ‘when I first started stuff [in the
80s] it was really radical… I’m on the curriculum
now for A-level.’
What is Why is John Lennon Wearing a Skirt
about? It’s about growing up as a woman and the
world being for men. Everything – I think it’s still
true now – is sort of geared towards men. Sixties
and seventies TV programmes were all men, it was
Dr Who, James Bond, The Saint, Man in a Suitcase,
Randall and Hopkirk Deceased… You still get films
where women are going ‘yes dear, I love you dear,
anything you say dear’, and they’re not actually
human, for want of a word. They’re just there for
the men. A lot of men do seem to think that women
are just there for men, and that’s what John Lennon’s
kind of about.
Would that atmosphere have affected your
generation’s psyches? Absolutely. Even today, you
see women doubting what they want to do, and
not sure whether they should be allowed to do it.
They’ve been taught, from a very young age, to not
be counted.
I gather John Lennon also deals with clothing,
like women’s clothing is meant to be good
looking while men’s clothing is meant to be
practical? Yeah, it’s about everything to do with
women… I was watching the news this morning,
watching a female newsreader. Yay, we’ve got a
female newsreader, fantastic. But I was watching her
desperately trying to hold her stomach in. You’re
thinking ‘how can we take you seriously when your
main concern is holding in your stomach?’ But
that’s what women have to do to be newsreaders.
This guy with his big pot belly was just standing
there natural and normal.
Was it easy to find humour in those themes?
Yeah, because that’s the way I look at life anyway,
that sort of black humour… I hate people who take
things too seriously. It can be tragic, but you can
laugh at it; you should laugh at it.
How was John Lennon received during its initial
run, in 1990? It sold out, it really took off. The audience
were kind of divided between… There was
a lot of division in those times. That was the height
of feminism, and women’s liberation, and everybody
was trying to do something, which was great, but
a lot of women were worried about whether they
were doing it right. It’s the same thing; women not
having the courage of their own beliefs. That still
goes on today, because women still aren’t encouraged
to be autonomous.
So the play’s still relevant? That’s the tragedy of
it. Also it’s a good thing for me because I’ve got
something to do. Steve Ramsey
Claire Dowie performs Why is John Lennon Wearing
a Skirt (Sep 29, 8pm) and H to He (I’m Turning
Into a Man) (30 Sep, 8pm), both at The Otherplace,
otherplacebrighton.co.uk
....48....

comedy
...........................
Mark Thomas
Forgive us our trespasses...
Mark Thomas is the guy who drove a tank, decorated
as an ice-cream van, to a minister’s house, and
asked for tips on exporting it to Iraq. He’s the guy
who, in the late 90s, posing as a PR consultant, got
an Indonesian Major General to admit that ‘we do
some tortures’.
He’s ‘stopped arms deals… investigated everything
from Coca-Cola to inheritance tax avoidance,’ and
‘been arrested on numerous occasions’, according
to the press release for his latest show. That document
also quotes prominently the Metropolitan Police’s
description of him as a ‘general rabble-rouser’
and ‘alleged comedian’.
Thomas started out in the 80s, ‘working on a building
site by day, and hammering the comedy circuit
by night,’ in the Times’ words. In the 90s, he got a
Perrier nomination and his own Channel 4 series,
which lasted six seasons. But he fell out with them,
he later said, ‘when they suggested making Celebrity
Guantanamo Bay and offered me a place’.
A hard-to-classify comedian/performer/journalist/
activist, he tells me his latest show is “what I normally
do: go away, have adventures, cause trouble,
fuck people off, come back and tell the story.”
What is Trespass about? It’s about public space
and the privatisation of it. About corporations buying
it up, and the consequence of what I think is a
mass takeover of public space.
Who’s buying them? Hedge funds, management
groups, the Qatari wealth fund, Mitsubishi… all
sorts of people.
Why? Just as an investment? Yeah. How much
do you think London property has risen? It’s huge.
You can basically buy a shed and wait five years and
make a fortune.
Why would they then want to control these
spaces? If you’re going to buy it then you will
want to control what happens within it. So if you
buy a shopping centre, what you’ll want to do is to
maximise the number of people in your shopping
centre who are shopping, rather than, say, having a
social gathering.
What kind of effect does that kind of thing have
on the public? Well, there’ll be all sorts of things
that you can and can’t do. So if I go onto a public
highway I can demonstrate, hand out leaflets, hold
a meeting, make a speech, busk, do pavement art,
anything I want. But there, you wouldn’t be able to
do any of that, it’d be forbidden. Which means that
rights that we have as individuals, in law, are eroded
from these spaces.
How did you start to realise that the subject
– which at first glance seems unpromising
and potentially dry – would actually make an
interesting show? It’s kind of what I specialise in.
I always find things that look really unsexy and go:
‘Let’s make a show about that’.
Do you think politicians in general are wellmeaning
people? I think people have ideas and
ideologies and practicalities and agendas, and someone
can be totally nice and honest and reasonable
and still be an utter bastard in the way they treat the
poor. Steve Ramsey
The Old Market, Sept 16, 8pm, £15/£13
....49....

Digital treats
& electronic
beats
Over 100 events all over
Brighton all of September
#BDF15
brightondigitalfestival.co.uk

cinema
.........................................
How to Change the World
The genesis of Greenpeace
Jerry Rothwell’s latest
documentary sprang
from a serendipitous
moment in a research
library in the States.
“The guy sitting next
to me happened to be
looking through reams
of archive film footage
shot in the early days
of Greenpeace,” he
tells me, “working out what to throw out.” Jerry
realised he’d stumbled upon a cinematic goldmine,
as the founders of the movement, “little more than
a bunch of hippies in a boat”, had filmed every
manoeuvre they carried out. When this involves,
for example, placing a manned rubber dinghy
between a whale and a Russian whaler’s harpoon
gun, and watching the harpoon being fired anyway,
fifteen feet over their heads, you can imagine
some of the resulting footage is pretty sensational.
Jerry did further research and realised that there
was a human angle to the story of the early days
of Greenpeace – namely the conflict between the
leaders of the organisation - which could drive the
narrative along, turning his movie into “something
more than just another rallying eco documentary”.
One of the inner circle of the group was a dedicated
film-maker, who was filming the day-to-day
existence of the group off and on their boat, so the
struggle for power that developed, centring round
their unelected and often unwilling leader Robert
Hunter, was also well documented.
The resulting film that Rothwell wrote and directed
- How to Change the World - was seven years
in the making, and he intersperses the archive
footage (from 1971-1979) with specially filmed
talking-heads shots from
many of the people involved.
These range from
a synthesiser player who
was employed to make
whale-like noises from the
Greenpeace boat’s deck,
to Patrick Moore, who
replaced Hunter briefly as
leader of the group, and
has more recently reinvented
himself as an active climate-change denier.
“It was quite easy to get people to talk,” says
Rothwell, “because there were many different
sides to the story, and everybody wanted to be in a
position to voice their own.”
The one protagonist who doesn’t get interviewed
is Robert Hunter, who died in 2005. Nevertheless
Hunter is the central character of the film. A
journalist by trade, he had the vision to understand
that he could manipulate the media into getting his
environmental messages across to the public if he
served up ‘mindbombs’: well strategized manoeuvres
that would be guaranteed front-page column inches
and first-item categorisation on the news channels.
He was so successful he became an international
hero, but the pressure that resulted from his success
nearly destroyed him. It’s a gripping story.
Rothwell includes excerpts from Hunter’s biography
throughout the film, and ends it when he
bows out of Greenpeace, in 1979, after which the
organisation was converted into an international
concern, under the presidency of Jeff McTaggart,
based for its first ten years in Lewes. Alex Leith
8pm on Sept 9 at Uckfield Picturehouse and Duke
of York’s, followed by a live-broadcast Q&A with
Jerry Rothwell. howtochangetheworldfilm.com
....51....

BREMF 2015 celebrates Women through
the ages – as composers, performers,
inspirational characters, muses and symbols.
Highlights include ancient Arabic, Jewish and
Christian songs from Joglaresa, silent film and medieval
music with the Orlando Consort, and a new production
of the earliest opera by a female composer – Francesca
Caccini’s La liberazione di Ruggiero.
Tickets from £5 at bremf.org.uk
or Brighton Dome Ticket Shop on 01273 709709
Resident Music The Vinyl Frontier
BREMF15 Viva Lewes15 v1.indd 1 Dome Box Office
(Eastbourne)
27/07/2015 10:22
Venue if applicable
Union Records
seetickets.com
Music’s Not Dead
(Bexhill)
ticketweb.co.uk
Pebbles
(Eastbourne shows)
Age restrictions may apply.
Friday 11 September — The Hope & Ruin
(with friends Dictionary Pudding)
DRINKS
+ The Soft Walls
Monday 14 September — The Hope & Ruin
Girlpool
+ Nai Harvest
+ lilcraigyboi (DJ)
Saturday 19 September — Towner Gallery,
Eastbourne
Club Abstract
Thursday 24 September — Otherplace at
the Basement
H Hawkline &
Gwenno + support
Friday 9 October — The Haunt
Two Gallants
+ support
Monday 26 October — Komedia
Ron Sexsmith
+ support
Monday 9 November — Komedia
Julia Holter
+ support
Tuesday 10 November — Komedia
An evening with
Alela Diane &
Ryan Francesconi
Tuesday 17 November — Komedia
Mercury Rev
+ Nicole Atkins
+ Wolf Solent (DJ)
Wednesday 18 November — Komedia
The Mountain Goats
+ The Weather
Station
Thursday 26 November — Komedia
Built to Spill
+ Disco Doom
meltingvinyl.co.uk

CINEMA
..........................................
Scalarama
Great cinema… but not necessarily in cinemas
With over 500 diverse events across 300 venues
in over 100 towns and cities up and down
the country (and beyond), Scalarama, now in
its fifth year, is an openly-sourced season of
film events, with each screening programmed
by a different organisation or individual,
often in collaboration with established exhibitors
but increasingly using alternative spaces.
In venues as diverse as Redroaster coffee
house in Kemp Town, the Brighton Media
Centre on Middle Street and the glorious
Emporium theatre on London Road, there’s
plenty to enjoy. Kicking off the festival at
Fabrica, Duke Street, on Tuesday 1st is a rare
screening of Shirley Clarke’s The Cool World
(1963), the first commercial film to be set
in Harlem; this cinema verité-style feature,
replete with soundtrack by Dizzy Gillespie,
focuses on the 14-year-old leader of a local
gang as he attempts to survive the violent
expectations of his environment. The film is
part of a Clarke retrospective that includes
the stunning Portrait of Jason (1967), Ornette
Coleman: Made in America (1985) and debut
feature The Connection (1961). If nothing else,
do try to see these films.
Other highlights include a screening of the
German Expressionist classic The Cabinet
of Dr. Caligari with a live score by Partial
Facsimile, more horror glory with a screening
of two versions of Nosferatu, a season of films
based on the life and work of Oscar Wilde,
Germaine Dulac’s avant-garde classic The
Seashell and the Clergyman, on 16mm, with
a live score by Drill Folly and Miles Brown,
and, as a fitting Closing Night gala, a chance
to see Alejandro Jodorowsky’s surreal, psychedelic
nightmare, Santa Sangre.
Another stand-out moment is the screening
of B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West Berlin
1979–1989 (2015), playing at the Duke of
York’s on Sunday 27th. Brought to us by the
good people at KissKissKino and Sensoria,
this documentary on the music and art scene
in West Berlin prior to the fall of the Wall is a
fascinating insight into this very special time
and place that attracted radical artists of every
hue to create a unique moment in popular
(sub-)culture. Serious fun.
Yoram Allon
....53....

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cinema
..........................................
Yoram Allon takes a look at other film highlights
Elsewhere in the city, movie magic continues
in many different guises. Firstly, in the
firm hope that we enjoy more of an Indian
Summer than the supposed real thing,
Brighton’s Big Screen keeps the flag flying
for classic and family films showing on the
beach just east of Palace Pier, through to
Sunday 13th. Highlights include Richard
Linklater’s tour-de-force, Boyhood; Ridley
Scott’s masterpiece, Blade Runner; Alfonso
Cuarón’s groundbreaking Gravity; obvious
but still satisfying selections such as Quadrophenia
and Brighton Rock; and the full-on
genius that is School of Rock. Just pray that
the rain holds off.
Meanwhile, over at the Duke of York’s, as
well as getting fully behind the Scalarama
shenanigans (including the screening of
F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu with a live score
by harpist Elizabeth-Jane Baldry as part
of their 105th birthday celebrations on
Tuesday 22nd) Andrew Haigh’s excellent
45 Years, starring Charlotte Rampling and
Tom Courteney, while Friday 11th sees the
opening of Woody Allen’s latest offering, Irrational
Man. Both these strong films herald
the return of more sensible fare after the
inanity of the traditional summer blockbuster
season.
Other events of note at DoY’s this month
include the all-day one-off screening on
Sunday 6th of Bruno Dumont’s tragiccomic
crime story P’tit Quinquin, the French
TV four-part mini-series that’s been getting
rave reviews and favourable comparisons
to David Lynch’s iconic Twin Peaks, as well
as Roger Waters’ The Wall getting another
airing on Tuesday 29th.
In addition to these fine filmic events, the
DoY’s ‘Vintage Sundays’ strand continues,
with screenings of – amongst others –
Marco Ferreri’s black comedy La Grand
Bouffe (6th) and John Huston’s classic, The
Misfits (13th), scripted by Arthur Miller and
starring Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable.
Over at the Duke’s at Komedia, the excellent
‘Discover Tuesdays’ strand presents
its customarily strong mix of features and
documentaries, including the incendiary
Best of Enemies (1st); Alice Rohrwacher’s
slow-burning family melodrama, The
Wonders, starring Monica Belluci (8th);
and award-winning Andalucia-set murder
mystery Marshland (15th).
....55....

....56....

art
.....................................
Solange Leon de Iriarte
Whatever the weather
Solange Leon de Iriarte spends more of her time
working outdoors than in her studio. The Scottishborn
Chilean artist creates her pieces in situ, sitting
outside for hours, enduring the great British weather.
“I almost died of hypothermia twice this year; I had
heat packs on my wrists and feet, and on my back, but
if it’s February and you’re not moving, your body gets
really cold,” she says. Rather than try to protect her
work from the elements, she embraces the impact they
can have on a drawing: “What rain does to ink is really
beautiful;” she explains, “the lines blend and they soften.”
Puppy paw prints and seagull droppings have also
made their mark on her work.
Solange has dedicated her time to her art since leaving
a career in architecture five years ago. “My mum
wouldn’t let me study art, because she was a painter herself
and she didn’t want me to have to go through the
hardship and sacrifices of being an artist. She said, ‘if
you want to study art, you have to pay for it yourself.’ So
I had to study architecture, but, me being me, I chose
the most creative, avant-garde, artistic architecture
school I could find.”
She studied in Chile at the University of Valparaiso,
which uses an area of land called the Open City to
give students the opportunity to design and build experimental
structures, which their professors then live
in. “The really exciting part of designing a building,
for me, was how people were going to use it,” she says,
“but detailing windows was not so great.” The school
encouraged students to devote their time to drawing,
telling them to ‘come to class with 20 drawings, or don’t
come to class at all.’
While architecture remains her key influence, the energy
and movement in her pieces give life and soul to
an otherwise stationary structure. You can tell, without
seeing any human figures, whether it has been a busy
day or a quiet one, stormy or sunny. “It’s the expression
of movement that matters,” she says. “I drew a
piece during Paddle Round the Pier, and the beach
was packed. These pieces are more difficult to draw,
they’re ‘noisy’ pieces.”
Just before part of the West Pier broke away last
winter, she managed to get one of the last drawings
of the structure in its previous state. “I went down to
the seafront in the wind and rain, and drew for three
hours. By the time I’d finished my drawing was so wet
I couldn’t take it home, so I brought it to the café underneath
the Bandstand and asked if I could leave it
there until the rain stopped. By the time I got back to
pick it up, the structure had fallen.” RC
Solange’s work is at Cameron Contemporary Art, on
Second Avenue, in the ‘Black White Light Dark’ Show,
5 Sept–5 Oct. cameroncontemporaryart.com.
solangeleon.com
....57....

design
................................
Batsuits you, sir
Costume specialist Graham Churchyard
What attracted you to working in costume?
I grew up in London, so from a young age I was
able to see what people were wearing on the
Kings Road and Carnaby Street, then, as a teen,
I got into punk and the New Romantics. My first
costume job was a bit of an accident. I applied to
work for a company called Bermans and Nathans.
I didn’t really know what they did; I just thought
it sounded interesting... I worked there for seven
years, on many productions, with many designers.
Working on things like The Empire Strikes Back
and Superman II, I realised costume isn’t just about
sequined dresses and funny hats; it can be technical
and challenging.
You worked on the first Batman film as well as
The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.
How has Batman changed? Batman has always
had a wonderful silhouette, but what has changed
greatly has been the technology and materials that
have gone into creating it. Early Batman had a
foam-latex bull neck that caused the so-called ‘Batturn’,
meaning he had to swivel at the waist. By
developing a lighter foam mixture, we improved
that. For The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight
Rises, he was still sculpted and moulded, but the
neck became a separate piece from the cowl.
What does your job involve exactly? I start by
pulling the team together: model makers, technicians,
cutters, dressmakers, on-set standbys... The
number of people involved in a costume like Batman
is quite incredible. With Costume FX we use
both established techniques, and try to innovate
with new materials and technologies. We make
prototypes, for example, if we have an army we
make samples that can be reproduced in-house or
in workshops all over the world. We might have
leatherwork from India or chainmail from Italy. I
have to ensure that we get the best for the budget,
in terms of visuals and practicality.
What do you love about your work? The greatest
pleasure is in combining the creative design
side of a costume with the technical and practical
aspects. I also like the collaboration between
myself, the costume designer, director and in later
stages, the actor. This worked particularly well
during the making of the Bane mask on The Dark
Knight Rises. The point when you see the actor
really owning the costume - seeing how they will
take it forward to help them create the character -
is probably the most exciting moment.
What will you be talking about at The Costume
Clinic on 19th Sept? I will be part of the
‘Bat Panel’ - a line-up of professionals, including
Oscar-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming,
that have worked on every Batman film. We will
talk through how things have changed, as well as
how much has stayed the same… There’ll be a few
tales from behind the scenes too.
Anything to add? Capes are cool… and a leading
man needs the right hat. Chloë King
The Batsuit will be on show at Brighton museum
until Sept 20, as part of thecostumegames.com
....59....

Charleston, Firle, near Lewes,
East Sussex, BN8 6LL
For more information call 01323 811626
Tickets from 01273 709709 or
brightonticketshop.com
charleston.org.uk/smallwonder

literature
..........................................
Unexploded
Alison MacLeod’s frightened Brighton
Alison MacLeod’s 2013 Bookernominated
novel, Unexploded, has
been picked by the organisers of
this year’s Shoreham Wordfest as
the ‘festival read’. Unexploded spans
a year of life in Brighton during
WW2, 1940-1941, when the town
was under threat of Nazi invasion.
This very real sense of threat and
terror is at the forefront of the
novel and permeates the life of
every character.
However, as MacLeod was keen
to point out, when I meet her at The Emporium
in Brighton, this is not a book which is set solely
in the past: “When I write historically,” she says,
“I am only ever interested if I am really writing
about the contemporary”.
It is no surprise, then, that the idea for Unexploded
was conceived during the days after the 2005 London
bombings. “That’s really how the book came
about, I didn’t start off by any means thinking I
want to write a WW2 novel.” Thinking about the
way in which the fear of terrorism is felt across the
world and perpetuated by the media, MacLeod
turned to WW2, and Brighton in particular, to
explore how we are currently affected by this
persistent sense of threat.
Though London was devastated during the war,
“with Brighton it was different, it was more
psychological. Bombs were being dropped but
they weren’t constantly being dropped, at Park
Crescent there were unexploded bombs. But what
interested me was that the Nazis had a psychological
strategy for Brighton. They called it terrorism
and it was about terrorising the
population.”
MacLeod was also drawn to writing
about Brighton after having
noticed a paucity of novels set in
this city: “It is so rich, there are all
these little palimpsests of stories
here and a whole range of life,
from wealth to poverty, real light
and darker elements... I just became
alert to the possibilities and
had antennae up for Brighton and
then on the antennae a sense of
untold stories began to arrive. The way Brighton
had been affected had not really been explored.”
By setting the book in Brighton, MacLeod
succeeds in shedding light on the reality of the
situation whilst simultaneously creating a palpable
sense of surrealism. Walking around the streets of
Brighton after reading Unexploded one wonders
how this city could have ever had an internment
camp at the racecourse; how it bore this
interminable sense of invasion. But we know that
it did, and MacLeod’s use of hindsight enables the
book to avoid sentimentalism and nostalgia and
instead captures “the tissue paper of stories, shifting
about, layer upon layer... at the same time not
letting it shift so much that the tension falls out
but to keep a sense of urgency. For me very logical
realism makes too safe a container for a story and
so I wanted those touches of the surreal to shake
it… just to make it seem like it can’t be true, but it
is.” Holly Fitzgerald
Shoreham Wordfest, 20 Sept-10 Oct,
shorehamwordfest.com
....61....

ighton maker
................................
‘Mr Flame’
Inventor Paul Harrison
How would you describe what you do? I don’t
know quite... explore, invent. I’m the inventor of
the silk flame illusion – that was back in 1999. I
was exploring just for my own amusement, making
some wind-driven puppets, and I came up with
the flame. Then I worked with everyone: Disney,
MTV, the Brit awards, the Royal Opera House,
the Metropolitan Opera house. I had four years of
being ‘Mr Flame’ and going round the world with
it, but I had some dodgy business people, it all went
a bit squirly-wirly and lots of people copied me, so
I developed into other prop-making stuff. But the
flame gave me a bit of wind under my wings.
What did you do next? I moved down here and
did a whole load of signs – all the big hand-painted
shop signs – for everybody pretty much around
Brighton. And I’m quite famous for my inside-out,
upside-down and back-to-front piano which I used
to busk with. I found the piano in a skip - you find
them all the time in skips - and opened it up and
took out all the moving parts. It’s tuned to all the
black notes. I’ve made some dreamy, other-worldly
music on it, now I’m making film music for the
BBC. It’s been used on The Voice.
What have you been making recently? An
illusion, for a new bar called The Yellow Book on
York Place. It’s going to be like looking down a
bottomless ladder surrounded by three hundred
bottles of champagne. It’s about a metre and a half
squared and about the same deep and people will
walk across the top of it. I had the idea and made a
prototype of it, before someone turned them onto
me. You’ve just got to make things when you think
of them so you can show people.
Where do you work? This amazing place came
up, at The Old Foundry in Lewes. It’s this incredible
hundred-year-old building where the ironwork
for the West Pier and Brighton station was built,
but it’s due for demolition. It’s enabled loads of
things for loads of people. I had a big studio in
Brighton but it was nowhere near as big as this. I
have the space to store things which never really
would have got off the ground and to tinker about
all day. If you want to find out more about the
building there’s an interesting video on my website,
or have a look at lewesphoenixrising.com.
What’s your favourite invention? My favourite is
whatever I’ve made the week that I make it. Then it
gets put on the backburner and I make something
else and the new thing becomes the favourite. RC
harrisonsbrighton.co.uk
....62....

Photo by Katya de Grunwald
Photo by Amelia Shepherd
brighton maker
................................
The Maker’s Atelier
Kemptown’s maven of handmade
The Maker’s Atelier occupies an achingly enviable
subterranean slice of a Regency block in Kemptown
and its founder, Frances Tobin, seems as
comfortable in her own skin as she is in her super
stylish (homemade) clothes. Put simply, it’s a place
to spend a day learning dress-making skills from a
person with a dyed-in-the-yarn love of textiles. But
it’s so much more. Her clothes, she says, “are really
for any woman but she’s all about style. It’s about an
attitude rather than an age”. And she’s right.
It’s also the home of her online pattern store. If
you’ve ever bought a dressmaking pattern, it can
be an underwhelming experience, but The Maker’s
Atelier’s patterns - the very objects themselves - are
beautiful. Promisingly packaged in a string-tied,
card envelope, there are two coats, two dresses,
tops, a pencil skirt and a jacket to choose from and,
for those lacking Frances’ feel for fabric, they come
as makers’ kits too, including all the material and
trim you’ll need. For the fully immersive experience,
you can make a dress in a day or a coat in a
weekend with Frances to guide you. Her premise is
that the simplest shapes, in beautiful fabrics, make
the most successful clothes.
But like many things that look simple and effortless,
The Maker’s Atelier is the creative tour de
force of decades of experience. Frances made her
first skirt when she was eight, and already obsessed
with fabric. Her father was an avid collector of
textiles and her mother made clothes for her and
her four siblings, so the scene was well set. She
names David Bowie as an early influence; “When
I saw him I was living in Worcester, hating convent
school, and I realised – Oh God – I can get out
of here!” If he could change his image every week,
it meant she could too and, after studying Textiles
at Brighton University and the Royal College, she
spent years in the industry, initially at Les Copains
(‘for the love of yarn’) and then stints with Versace,
Thierry Mugler, Gucci Sport and others.
She’s inhabited squats and tumbledown breweries
and elegant apartments in Bologna but now lives
and works in the Kemptown atelier. The space itself
is an exercise in the same pared-back cool; a
blank canvas, full of possibility and worthy of its
own article. The sample clothes on the rail are all
simple lines and beautiful fabrics and, Frances tells
me, incredibly easy to make. I can’t think of a nicer
place to spend the day.
Of her latest project she says “I loved building
brands and thought it would be a challenge to
build the Net-a-Porter of patterns. Luxe and what
I wanted in my world. Then I thought ‘I’m going
to do this’”.
And so she has. The Maker’s Atelier has just celebrated
its first birthday and her mission to inject
style into homemade is firmly on track.
Lizzie Lower
Patterns £22.50, Makers’ Kits from £30, Experience
Days from £195. themakersatelier.com
....63....

we try...
........................................
Knicker making
A frill a minute
I’m at Sew Fabulous, a not-for-profit sewing
school run by friends Sue and Susie in the Open
Market, learning how to sew my very own pair of
frilly knickers.
Firstly Sue takes me through the basics of using
the sewing machine: checking that it is set up
correctly and threading the machine. “It’s always
good when you’re starting a new project to test
out your stitching on a piece of scrap before you
start using your expensive fabric,” she explains, and
we practise a few straight stitches and the zig-zag
stitch which we’ll be using to sew the elastic onto
the knickers, to allow them to stretch.
After I’ve carefully selected my fabric and chosen
a co-ordinating elastic trim, Sue shows me how to
correctly cut out the pieces, resting the blunt edge
of the fabric shears on the table, to keep the fabric
laying flat. I cut out the front and back
pieces, and the gusset, ready to be stitched
together. The construction of the knickers
is relatively straight-forward and
quite therapeutic. One seam in, I’ve
already decided I’m going to make
myself ten more pairs when I
get home, and another pair for
everybody I know. Susie tells
me that they get lots of hen
parties booking in for group
workshops, and their cosy
studio feels like the perfect place
for a little natter.
Sue started sewing almost by accident;
as a young mother looking to
develop a new skill she found a college
which also had a crèche, so she
enrolled on courses in sewing and
carpentry. I think it’s obvious which
one won. Susie started making her own clothes
from a young age and became fed up when the
things she had made started to fall apart because
she hadn’t known how to make them properly, so
she decided to learn. They’ve been running Sew
Fabulous together for about a year, but running
these workshops is only the beginning of their
plans for the studio.
Their ultimate aim is to be able to offer free or
subsidised sewing lessons to people who need
them most. The unemployed, young people from
disadvantaged backgrounds and people on low
incomes are charged on a sliding scale according
to what they can afford. To fund this, Sue and Susie
teach regular workshops like the one I’ve been
on today, as well as after-school clubs for kids and
parties for adults. They also hold ‘sewing socials’
where anyone who needs a machine
or space to work can come along for an
hourly fee, and one of the ladies will be
on hand for support.
I get to the final stage of making my
knickers: stitching the elastic trim
around the edges. Sue shows
me how to stretch the elastic
evenly and stitch it into
place, which is really fiddly
and takes up all of my
concentration.
On closer inspection, my
stitching is all over the place,
I’ve let the fabric overlap the trim in
places and underlap it in others, but
I don’t care. I’ve made them myself
and I shall wear them with pride.
Rebecca Cunningham
sew-fabulous.org
....64....

talking shop
................................
Gladrags
Who do you want to be today?
How did Gladrags begin? I used to work in community
theatre as a costume designer and I always
had a tiny budget, so I had to be very creative with
what I could find and adapt. At the same time, I
worked in nursing, caring for elderly people. I had
to run reminiscence sessions, helping them to remember
things from their past and tell stories; I
wanted to make costumes accessible to projects like
these. I started to develop my own small collection
which I lent out, and it grew organically from
there. Now I’ve got a fantastic team of volunteers
and around 6,000 costumes which we hire out to
schools, community groups and amateur dramatics.
How much does it cost to hire a costume?
Schools and community groups pay about £3-£6
for an adult’s costume. We have people coming to
hire costumes for parties and festivals who pay about
£20-£25, which is part of how we subsidise lending
for those who need it, but only a small part. We also
do a lot of fundraising.
What will you be doing this month? During
the Costume Games we’re going to be within the
arena, and we’re running a special costume deal.
There are lots of events where people need to turn
up in costume and we want to encourage them to
come here! For some of the events we are running
a costume bus. On the Sunday there’s a costume
carnival for children where people are encouraged
to come dressed up. Any proceeds will be going towards
Gladrags - it’s our 21st year, and as a way of
celebrating that, we’re holding 21 outreach events.
What does your outreach work involve? We
teach sewing skills to children and young people,
focusing on those living in deprived areas, as
a means of maintaining their own clothes. Some
sessions we run during school time for kids with
special needs; tasks like threading a needle develop
fine motor skills, and there’s a direct correlation
between this and literacy or handwriting skills. It’s
also a nurturing space for the child; they could be
very bright but issues around self-confidence might
mean that they’re not be doing so well at school.
Do you teach any adults? We also work with
communities and groups who aren’t able to access
all of what Brighton has to offer, either because it’s
beyond their budget or beyond their cultural interest.
In my experience, communities who are geographically
on the fringe of everything that’s going
on can feel like it doesn’t apply to them. We’ll
be holding a big fundraiser on 27th November to
help us raise funds towards our 21st birthday aim of
reaching communities like these with our popular
dressing-up, storytelling, sewing and reminiscence
projects in their area.
Rebecca Cunningham talked to Vania Mills
01273 609184/gladragscostumes.org.uk
....65....

䤀 一 䐀 䤀 䔀 ⴀ 䴀 䄀 刀 吀 䈀 刀 䤀 䜀 䠀 吀 伀 一
䈀 爀 椀 最 栀 琀 漀 渀 ᤠ 猀 渀 攀 眀 椀 渀 搀 漀 漀 爀 洀 愀 爀 欀 攀 琀 椀 猀 漀 瀀 攀 渀 椀 渀 最 漀 渀 一 漀 爀 琀 栀 匀 琀 爀 攀 攀 琀 ⸀
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∠ 䰀 漀 眀 挀 漀 猀 琀 Ⰰ ˻ 攀 砀 椀 戀 氀 攀 琀 爀 愀 搀 椀 渀 最 猀 瀀 愀 挀 攀 椀 渀 愀 栀 椀 最 栀 昀 漀 漀 琀 昀 愀 氀 氀 愀 爀 攀 愀
伀 倀 䔀 一 䤀 一 䜀 匀 伀 伀 一 ℀
䘀 漀 爀 猀 瀀 愀 挀 攀 愀 渀 搀 猀 琀 愀 氀 氀 攀 渀 焀 甀 椀 爀 椀 攀 猀 Ⰰ ǻ 氀 氀 椀 渀 琀 栀 攀 漀 渀 氀 椀 渀 攀 昀 漀 爀 洀 愀 琀 㨀
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the way we work
This month, Adam Bronkhorst photographed some of Brighton’s seamstresses, alterers
and dressmakers. “My influence for the shoot came from a documentary I’d watched
about a photographer who didn’t shoot in ‘available light’ – as most photographers
describe lighting conditions – but preferred to shoot in ‘available darkness’. He
thought people were more interesting and relaxed in darker conditions.” We asked
them to tell us about the item of clothing they bought longest ago.
www.adambronkhorst.com | 07879 401 333
Annia at The Zip Yard, thezipyard.co.uk
“Actually these trousers; I got these zips put in and one day I fell off my bike
and tore the knees so I got the guys here to sew in some patterned patches.”
....67....

the way we work
Evangelina at Helen’s Alterations, helensalterations.co.uk
“I have a lot of clothes from the 90s. The other day I was going to a gig and
I pulled out this ridiculous bias-cut plaid dress that I wore as a student.”

the way we work
Kat at Sew in Brighton sewing school, sewinbrighton.co.uk
“The item I’ve had the longest is probably something I made myself. The first pair of jeans
I made were a pair of hipster flared jeans, about 10 years ago.”

the way we work
Wendy at Sew What Darling, sewwhatdarling.co.uk
“It would be my first pair of stilettos, which I bought aged 15, from Saxone
as they were the only place I could buy size two shoes from – I have ridiculous feet!”

Beat the traffic & arrive in style
Long furlong Barn have teamed up with Elite Helicopters
to offer flights to Goodwood Festival of Speed
and The Goodwood Revival.
Arrive at the barn and enjoy a full english breakfast
whilst taking in the stunning views before being picked
up by Elite Helicopters for your 10-15 minute flight to
Goodwood avoiding all the traffic and arriving in style!
Find out more at
www.elitehelicopters.co.uk
Call us: 01903 871 594
Email us: EnquiriEs@longfurlongbarn.Co.uk
Visit us: www.longfurlongbarn.Co.uk
find us: Clapham | worthing | wEst sussEx | bn13 3xn
Axtell Hairdressing , 4 Station Street, Lewes

the way we work
Caroline at The Fashion School, thefashionschool-uk.com
“I’ve got a really great old 20s dress. My mother was an antique clothes seller
on Kings Road and I used to wear these clothes to clubs and trash them.”

Food & Drink directory
Raise Bakery
Our well-established, family-run bakery has opened its first shop offering
a wide range of sweet treats, breads, lunches, coffees, breakfast options,
smoothies and milkshakes. Everything in store is handmade in Sussex with
a modern British/American style. We also stock a range of baking supplies
for the avid baker. Free Wi-Fi and power points. Join us in our friendly,
relaxed environment, open seven days a week.
facebook.com/raisebakery
twitter.com/raisebakery
100 Church Road, Hove, 01273 778808, raisebakery.com
No.32
No.32 has it all and
more in this all-in-one
venue. A restaurant, bar
and club in the heart of
Brighton, serving freshly
made food and drink
seven days a week. From traditional grills to
fashionable burgers to freshly made cocktails.
With the sound of great music from local DJs
you can eat, drink and dance at this all-encompassing
modern setting, so come and visit us for
an evening to remember!
Burgers, grills, bites, platters, sandwiches, salads.
Modern & classic cocktails. Craft & draught
beers. Happy hour Sundays - Fridays 5-7pm.
No.32 is a restaurant, bar and exclusive late
night venue in Brighton with regular live
music and special events.
32 Duke Street, 01273 773388, no32dukestreet.com
71 East Street, 01273 729051, terreaterre.co.uk
Terre à Terre
Al fresco dining
on the terrace and
now street dining
on East Street at
weekends available
at Terre à Terre,
the local go-to for
the most creative
vegetarian food in
Brighton and always
delivered with a cheeky little pun! Open seven
days a week offering brunch, lunch and dinner
options from small plates, sharing tapas
to three-course set meals and not forgetting
their magnificent afternoon-tea menu, multitiered
savoury, sweet and traditional delights
available from 3 till 5pm daily, and lots of
organic wines, beers and juices! Summer, true
Brighton style!
MARKET
OPENING EARLY SEPTEMBER
Situated in the heart of Brunswick village, MARKET Restaurant and Bar will
be all about the very best of Sussex. MARKET is to be a Marketplace; a place
for great people, for great food and for great drink. MARKET will be a hub,
a hive of activity and the setting for many good times. Sharing is very much a
theme of MARKET with a wide variety of Small Plates on offer plus
MARKET Classics, Sunday roasts and the weekend Big MARKET Brunch.
Sit at one of the many stools at the kitchen bar that overlooks the chefs, take a
table or book the upmarket private dining room, ‘DownMARKET’.
42 Western Road, 01273823707, market-restaurantbar.co.uk

advertorial
Boho Gelato
6 Pool Valley, 01273 727205, bohogelato.co.uk
Ranging from Vanilla to Violet, Mango to Mojito and Apple
to Avocado, Boho’s flavours are made daily on the premises
using locally produced milk and cream and fresh ingredients.
24 flavours are available at any time (taken from their
list of now over 400) and for vegans, Boho Gelato always
stock at least five non-dairy flavours. Gelato and sorbet
is served in cups or cones or take away boxes.They were
recently included in the Telegraph’s top ten ice creams in the
UK and last summer were featured in Waitrose magazine.
Saint Andrew’s Lane, Lewes, 01273 488600
209 High Street, Lewes, 01273 472769
Pelham House, Lewes
A beautiful 16th-century four-star town house
hotel that has been exquisitely restored to create
an elegant venue. With beautiful gardens, a
stylish restaurant and plenty of private dining
and meeting rooms it is the perfect venue for
both small and larger parties.
pelhamhouse.com
Facebook: Pelham.house
Twitter: @pelhamlewes
Flint Owl Bakery, Lewes
Our breads contain organic stoneground flours,
spring water, sea salt and that’s it. No improvers of
any kind. Long fermentations bring characteristic
flavours and a natural shelf life. We wholesale our
craft breads and viennoiserie in Brighton and deliver
six days a week. Visit our shop/cafe on Lewes
High St to find our full range of breads, croissants,
cakes, salads and enjoy Square Mile coffee in our
courtyard garden. info@flintowlbakery.com
Ten Green Bottles
Wine shop or bar? Both, actually... wine to take away
or drink in, nibbles and food available. Many wines
imported direct from artisan producers. We also offer
relaxed, fun, informal private wine-tasting sessions from
just two people up to 30 and for any level of wine knowledge - we encourage you
to ask questions and set the pace. We also offer tastings in your home or office,
and will come to you with everything you’ll need for a fun, informative and even
competitive evening. The best-value destination for great wine in Brighton!
9 Jubilee Street, 01273 567176, tengreenbottles.com

drink
...........................................
Okinami Cocktails
Slow news day
Writing for a magazine called Viva Brighton,
one can occasionally justify watching the world
go by in the name of work. City life is meat
and drink to us, after all. So, on the hottest day of the year so far, we assign ourselves a watching brief and
head barwards as soon as the hour strikes respectable. We find the perfect people-watching spot on the
shady balcony of Okinami in New Road. It’s an irresistibly voyeuristic vantage point, so we’re immediately
distracted by the vignettes playing out below. Conversation slows to an intermittent commentary and soon
dries up completely. Heat sapped, slo-mo, hot-blooded street life is, it turns out, utterly absorbing. A welcome
trio of elegant green drinks arrives in a waft of cool air, condensation beading on each glass. Mine’s a
Mojito - a mercifully long measure of white rum, sugar syrup and soda muddled with fresh lime and mint.
RC slowly sips her way to five a day with a Cabbage Patch Cooler – gin, fresh lemon, elderflower, cloudy
apple, celery bitters and cucumber. In other news, Alex takes onboard a Corpse Reviver #2 – a medicinal
blend of Plymouth Gin, Cointreau, Lillet Blanc and fresh lemon complete with absinthe rinse. Blood duly
cooled and the undead restored, it would be all too easy to while away the evening assigning stories to fleeting
scenes but it’s rude to stare (too long) and so we descend and slink homewards through the early evening
heat haze. LL Okinami Bar, New Road. All cocktails £4.50 until 6 and £6 thereafter
䈀 唀 夀 伀 一 䔀 䌀 伀 䌀 䬀 吀 䄀 䤀 䰀
䜀 䔀 吀 伀 一 䔀 䘀 刀 䔀 䔀
圀 䤀 吀 䠀 吀 䠀 䤀 匀 嘀 伀 唀 䌀 䠀 䔀 刀
....76....

food review
...........................................
Señor Buddha
Fusion tapas
As I’m going out to dinner,
I put on a smart new shirt,
which is slightly tight-fitting,
but what the hell. Where
I’m going is Señor Buddha, a
new tapas place on Preston
Road, kind of opposite
the Duke of York. As you
might suspect from its name,
there’s a ‘fusion’ theme to
this bar-restaurant, the two
fusing elements being Spain
and Thailand. I’m going with
my best mate Johnny, a good
judge because he lived for
years in San Sebastian, famous
for its small-plate bar-food culture. He’s a bit cynical
about the whole concept.
We sit up at the silver bar, overlooking the kitchen,
where two blokes dressed in black are frying up
my favourite sort of foodstuff – I see scallops, I see
asparagus – for a noisy group sitting at the biggest
of the three tables behind us. One of these blokes
turns out to be the owner, Lee.
We normally do these reviews incognito, but this
time, I must reveal, it’s on the house, and, starting
with a dish of king scallops and morcilla de Burgos
(served on cauliflower and coconut puree), over the
next couple of hours Lee serves us up pretty much
every dish on the menu, each one accompanied by
a small glass of wine carefully chosen to complement
its flavour.
From the first forkful of scallop, soft black pudding
and puree, I know I’m going to have an exceptional
culinary experience. A subtle addition of coriander
really brings out the delicate flavour of the scallop,
but this particular fusion is more Spanish than
Thai, and it really works.
Just about every concoction
we get through is excellent.
We start with three fish dishes,
accompanied by French and
Portuguese whites, and then
proceed through the flesh and
fowl section, with a variety of
reds, finishing with some extremely
alcoholic Boho Gelato
ice creams. We try, in roughly
this order: Padron peppers;
octopus tentacle; Asian tuna
tartare with Iberian ham;
aromatic soy lamb cutlets;
patatas bravas; confit duck leg;
grilled asparagus; mountain mutton stew; vegetable
croquettes; green mango salad (prices range from
£2.50 to £6.50). In most every case there’s a subtle
fusion element: a dash of wasabi here, a miso and
lime dressing there, which makes every dish rise
above the regular tapas you’d expect in a standard
Spanish-themed bar. Johnny’s scepticism melts
away, and – the loud group having soon moved on
with their night – Lee takes us through every dish,
revealing a great passion for what he’s doing, plus
an ambition to make the concept work in other
places beyond Brighton.
The absolute highlight is the octopus, which has
been slow cooked in red wine and Thai spices, and
comes accompanied by little dollops of ‘squid ink
caviar’; that and the Thai-inspired gin cocktail he
makes us, to finish. All in all, then, an unexpectedly
comprehensive, if ultimately slightly overindulgent
success: I’ll certainly be back soon, in a
looser-fitting shirt. Alex Leith
9 Preston Road, 01273 567832/senorbuddha.co.uk
....77....

ecipe
..........................................
Sugardough Bakery
Spinach and ricotta roll
Photo by Lisa Devlin, cakefordinner.co.uk
Owner and chief baker of the Sugardough bakery in Hove, Kane McDowell, has just opened his
second shop, in the Lanes. Here he shares his recipe for a lunchtime favourite – the spinach and
ricotta roll – which he says is best served warm with a side salad, topped with homemade sourdough
croutons. 18 Market Street, 01273 771218
Ingredients:
Puff pastry (we make all of ours, but
pre-rolled is simpler!)
250g ricotta
250g bag of fresh spinach
30g grated cheddar
One medium onion, diced
A handful of sourdough breadcrumbs
Salt and pepper
Recipe:
Start by wilting the spinach, then let it cool
and squeeze out all of the water. Roll out your
pastry into a long rectangle, to about 3mm
thick. Mix all of the ingredients together in a
bowl and pipe along the top long edge of the
pastry. Roll the pastry over and chop into rolls
of your required size; we use about five-and-ahalf
inches for a large roll. Brush with egg and
bake at 250°C for 20 minutes to half an hour,
or until golden.
....79....

food news
...........................................
Edible Updates
It’s all go in Hove this month, with two openings. Fourth and
Church, on Church Road, is styling itself as a neighbourhood shop
and wine bar, offering gourmet deli fare such as artisan cheeses,
cured meats and fish, pâtés and terrines, pickled vegetables and
preserves, as well as fresh food made onsite. They’ll also be stocking
fine wines from Butlers Wine Cellar. Customers can drop in and
pick up supplies or stay for lunch or dinner, as they’re open all day.
The pedigree behind the place is impressive, as owners Sam and
Paul are chefs by trade and have worked in everything from Michelin-starred formal restaurants to busy
gastro-pubs, but they’ve also worked front of house, in management, tended bar and waited on tables.
Just down the road, where AA-rosette restaurant Graze used to be, and from the same owners Kate Alleston
and Neil Mannifield, comes MARKET Restaurant and Bar. Diners can choose to eat at the bar and watch
the chefs do their thing, or book ‘DownMARKET’, for a table in their private dining room. The building’s
makeover promises to give the feel of a traditional market, with green Victorian metro tiling, mirrors and
a bright, clean, utilitarian approach to the design. The market theme continues through the menu, when
customers can choose ‘From the Greengrocer’, ‘From the Fishmonger’ and ‘From the Butcher’. Expect
interesting-sounding concoctions like scallops with wild boar bacon & Frangelico syrup, or polenta, mushroom,
& cream cheese balls with smoked paprika popcorn. Antonia Phillips @PigeonPR
Wedding Fair
Sunday 20th September
11am-3pm Free entry
Long Furlong Barn is delighted to announce they
will be hosting a wedding fair.
Come along to meet with a range of suppliers
and get inspiration for your special day.
Sunday 20th September
11am-3pm Free entry
Call us: 01903 871594
Email us: enquiries@longfurlongbarn.co.uk
Visit us: www.LongFurlongbarn.co.uk
Find us: Clapham | Worthing | West sussex | Bn13 3xn

food
...........................................
Bronx Burger
Beef in the Lanes
A mid-August sunny Monday lunchtime: ideal time for
office-skiving, and people-watching. I decide to go to the
Mesmerist, to try out one of their ‘Bronx Burgers’, and am
happy to see there’s a table free in their suntrap outside
space, on the corner of Bartholomew Square. This bit of the Lanes has a completely different demographic
to its more Brightoner-frequented, hipsterful neighbour, North Laine. I decide, while sipping
a pint of Brighton Pale Ale, to do a very unscientific survey, on a napkin. This reveals the following (all
figures hugely approximate): 30% of passers-by wear sunglasses; 50% (from their slightly aimless gait
and slightly bored expressions) are tourists; only about 5% have visible tattoos; ten times more people
hold mobile phones than one another’s hands. My burger arrives, with pleasingly contoured chips, in a
red plastic basket, into which I squirt mayonnaise. The ‘Bronx’, one of eight choices, has cost me £8, and
is, according to the menu, ‘topped with crispy bacon, butter-fried white onions, baby gem lettuce and
our house burger dressing’. The beef patty, which has pleasing heft, has a home-made, hasn’t-witnessedthe-freezer
quality. The bread is of the soft, brioche variety. It’s a tasty burger. The chips are good, too,
or more accurately the ‘skin-on, triple cooked, hand-cut French fries, seasoned with our house smoked
paprika salt’. ‘Triple cooked’ sounds a bit worrying, but they’re good fries. Apart from the garnish on the
salad, there’s no attempt to tick off any of my five-a-day, so it’s vegetable stew for dinner. Alex Leith
5
Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th October
Fourth

Natural and honey coffees drying on the patios, El Salvador Cherries being pulped for the washed process, Mexico Being washed after fermentation, Ethiopia
coffee
...........................................
Coffee Guy
Small Batch’s Alan Tomlins
Everybody knows the difference in taste between
red, white and rosé wine. Not so many realise that
the way coffee tastes is equally defined by how it is
processed. There are three main ways of processing
coffee cherries after they are harvested, and the
method employed can have just as much impact on
the taste of your drink as the roast, the barista or
the country of origin.
These three methods are ‘washed’, ‘natural’ and
‘honey’, terms which describe what is done to
the seed of the coffee cherry after harvesting, and
before it is ready to export.
The most common method across the globe is the
‘natural’ method, as it is the oldest and simplest
form of processing and requires little equipment
or water. The coffee cherries are harvested then
dried in the sun until they are brittle enough to be
put through a huller that pops the seeds or coffee
beans out. This method means a lot of the cherry’s
flesh, or mucilage, is dried onto the coffee bean
and lends a very distinct taste that can range from
earthy and rubbery to boozy and berry-like.
In lower-grade coffees this can be very unpleasant,
but done well and with good coffee beans, naturals
can be amazing. Either way these tend to be lovethem-or-hate-them
coffees. About 20% of the
beans we import here are naturally processed.
The next-most-common method is ‘washed’ or
‘fully washed’. Most specialty-grade coffee is
processed this way, and it accounts for 70% of our
coffee. A pulping machine pops the beans out of
the cherry, which are put in a fermentation tank,
where the mucilage is broken down through natural
fermentation and separated from the beans.
The coffee is then pushed through water-filled
channels to further clean it, before being dried.
This coffee hasn’t got those funky, earthy notes,
but it’s a cleaner, purer taste.
This method uses a lot of clean, fresh water, so
in places where this can be scarce (such as Brazil
and Central America) a third method has been
developed, called ‘honey’ processing. The beans
are popped out of the cherry, and then dried with
quite a bit of the mucilage still around them.
This gives you the clean, light taste of a washed
coffee, mixed with the fuller body and distinctive
flavours of a natural coffee. When it’s done well it
can produce amazing results, and it is being done
well, especially in Costa Rica where the industry is
highly developed. Most of the remaining 10% of
our coffee is ‘honey’ processed.
So next time you buy a good coffee, have a look on
the label to see how it has been processed, just as
you’d take into account the colour of the wine you
buy. I’m a fan of all three methods, if they’re done
well, each for a different occasion, but my go-to
method is ‘washed’ because it affects the natural
flavour of the coffee the least and allows the coffee
to shine.
As told to Alex Leith
....83....

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䘀 愀 砀 㨀 ⠀ ㈀ 㜀 アパート⤀ 㐀 㠀 㘀 㤀 ㈀㈀ 圀 攀 戀 猀 椀 琀 攀 㨀 眀 眀 眀 ⸀ 瀀 爀 椀 漀 爀 礀 ⸀ 攀 ⴀ 猀 甀 猀 猀 攀 砀 ⸀ 猀 挀 栀 ⸀ 甀 欀
䠀 攀 愀 搀 琀 攀 愀 挀 栀 攀 爀 㨀 吀 漀 渀 礀 匀 洀 椀 琀 栀 䈀 䄀
䄀 搀 洀 椀 猀 猀 椀 漀 渀 猀 伀 昀 昀 椀 挀 攀 爀 㨀 圀 攀 渀 搀 礀 䘀 爀 愀 渀 挀 椀 猀 攀 砀 琀 ㈀

family
...........................................
Remix the Museum
Bringing natural history to life
The historical artefacts from the Booth Museum
of Natural History are being brought to life this
September. For the second year running, animator
Dave Packer has teamed up with the Brighton
Youth Film Festival to produce Remix the Museum,
an exhibition showcasing animations of the Booth’s
artefacts, created by a group of 13-19 year olds.
Dave began the first stage of the project by visiting
the museum and taking photographs of the exhibits,
which were printed out for the students to cut
up and play about with. “Young people seem really
clued up on animation,” says Dave, who works as a
freelance animator, creating corporate animations
for use on the web, as well as the “silly stuff” he
does for fun (you might have seen the video entitled
There’s a problem with Brighton’s Christmas lights
on YouTube). Part of the idea for the project came
from the growing ‘remix culture’ of the internet. “I
thought it’d be fun to play with the museum artefacts
and be able to bring a ‘hands on’ side to them.”
Remix the Museum is created using a rather more
old-fashioned method than he is used to; the stopmotion
animations are made up of photos taken
using a copy stand, which positions the camera
pointing directly downwards at the subjects placed
on the floor. “Gravity can be incredibly annoying
in animation,” Dave explains, because there’s always
a point in the middle of a movement where the
figure being moved becomes off balance. “I was
essentially thinking about how I could take the
annoying parts out of the process, giving them all
of the fun bits.”
For the second stage of the project, Dave gave
the young people a camera and told them to take
their own photographs inside the museum, which
they would turn into a second set of animations.
“The progress from one to the other is really great
to see,” says Dave, “and the results are far more
elaborate and advanced than I would have imagined.”
The two sets of animations will be projected,
alongside some of Dave’s own work, on the south
balcony in Brighton Museum and Art Gallery,
between the 8th and 30th September. RC
remixthemuseum.com
....85....

family
...........................................
The Outdoors Project
Al fresco activities, whatever the weather
It’s time to go back to
school, time for the
days to start getting
shorter and darker,
and time for the
outdoor adventures
of summer to draw
to a close. That is,
unless you’ll be taking
part in The Outdoors
Project this autumn.
Set up five years ago
by father-of-three Joel
Evans, the project’s
aim is to get kids outside, whatever the weather. “I
grew up in the States and a lot of my life was spent
outside,” says Joel, “but as a parent, I’ve been just as
guilty of sitting my kids in front of the TV instead of
getting them outdoors.” The project started as a kids’
boot camp, run by Joel, for a group of about eight,
but since then the project has exploded in popularity,
and there are now 32 schools in Brighton and Hove
running after-school clubs each week.
The activities change every term, covering games,
team-building, bush-craft survival, fire-lighting and
camp-craft, and forest school, where children learn
about things like tree identification. The sessions also
include Nerf – a game using toy blasters and foam darts
which has become hugely popular with kids around the
world, including those in their 20s and 30s. “The Nerf
thing is fantastic, but we deliver it as a tactical base invasion
game rather than a war game. We use it as a way
to get them running around and exploring strategies,
working together and staying active.”
Joel currently has 30 freelance instructors running the
sessions, from mountain bikers to expedition leaders,
bush-craft experts and personal trainers. “They each
bring a different element
to it and the kids
really look up to them,”
he says. “A lot of the
instructors are just ‘boys’
so the kids respond really
well to them – they’re all
great role models.”
As well as after-school
clubs, they run The
Saplings Project, a
parent-and-toddler
forest school group,
and hold holiday clubs
throughout the year. They also organise kids’ parties
and run workshops with schools which are based
on their curriculum. “For example,” Joel explains,
“if they’re learning about the Stone Age, we’ll go in
and make some Stone Age shelters and medallions.
It’s a great way to tie in with what they’re learning at
school, particularly for those kids – like myself – who
don’t learn by sitting down for six or eight hours.”
We all know that there’s a lot to be gained by spending
more time in the great outdoors: the exercise, the
fresh air, learning about the world around us, but for
Joel the most important skill that kids gain from the
group is just being able to be children. “When you get
to a certain age, especially around your friends and
peers, you start to worry about embarrassing yourself
in front of them. But when you’ve got an adult there
who’s much more ridiculous than you are, you can
just have fun.”
Rebecca Cunningham
Visit their website to find out if your child’s school is
involved with The Outdoors Project, or for more information
on the October half term holiday club:
theoutdoorsproject.co.uk
....86....

family health
......................................
Counselling Children
Rebecca Kirkbride
You work in private practice
rather than in schools, so
presumably it’s parents who
bring their offspring along…
Yes, and I make it clear from the
outset that it can be difficult for
parents. They’ve probably been
doing ‘the right thing’ bringing
up their child, then they contact
me and their role is to bring the
child along and pay someone else
to help them. And from the age
of 12/13 there’s the issue of confidentiality: it may
well be that the parents are being talked about, but
they can’t just ask ‘So, what did you talk about?’!
This modern expression, ‘parenting’, can
increase the pressure to be ‘a good parent’…
It can seem for some parents that the more
information and advice there is, and the more
they read and take in about parenting, the more
shame they ‘should’ feel if it seems something has
‘gone wrong’. The reality is that life is all about
going through difficult times both for individuals
and families and the most any parent can hope for
really is to be good enough. The place of therapy
for children and young people is in making sure
that difficult times don’t become more entrenched
and create major problems for them as they move
into adulthood.
Isn’t there a sense that adolescents are inevitably
going to run amuck, though? How can
a parent know that it’s gone too far? Parental
instincts are important. It’s partly true, that idea
that ‘they’re all like that’, but it’s when they’re
doing something like smoking or drinking more
than their friends. When a parent has concerns
that won’t go away, or there’s a sense that a child
is finding it difficult to talk to you,
that’s the time.
Which again can be hard for a
parent these days. ‘I’m really
good mates with my child’…
From around 12, young people
need a private life beyond Mum and
Dad. There are very few extended
families where you can talk to say,
an aunt about things that are too
embarrassing to talk about with
your parents.
What are common issues that bring people
along? With boys, drugs and alcohol, with teenage
girls issues around body image, self harm, anger,
anxiety. With both genders there can be LGBT
issues. Exam stresses crop up a lot. Increasingly
there are difficulties around social media. Being
constantly on the radar is difficult; arguments
get posted on social media and stay there forever
rather than blow over. There’s a whole cohort of
kids whose sexual awakening is taking place on Instagram,
so clearly we’ll see more problems arising.
There’s the old Woody Allen cliché of therapy
never ending. Can that happen with youngsters?
On the whole, young people get bored and
lose interest once they’ve got what they needed
from their therapy and are ready to move on. It’s
like a picnic - the therapist puts out the food on
the blanket and the young person takes what they
need and then wanders off to get on with their life,
hopefully satisfied for the time being. Andy Darling
Rebecca Kirkbride (baileykirkbridecounselling.
co.uk) works with children and adolescents aged
11 upwards. Her book Counselling Children and
Young People in Private Practice: A Practical Guide
(Karnac) is published in 2016
....87....

*Based on an adult ticket at £465 on our 12 month free direct debit scheme.
**On public transport within our extended travel zone.

football
......................................
The Albion: Behind the scenes
Kit manager Clive Thompson
I started this job in
December 2012, after
working as assistant to my
brother-in-law in a similar
capacity at Derby County.
I work with three other
full-time staff members.
We are in charge of the kits
of all the Brighton teams,
from the under eights to
the first team. That’s twelve
different squads, and that’s
a lot of kit.
Long gone are the days
when the apprentices used to clean the pros’
boots. The first-team boots are our job now. Only
two players wear them in black.
My normal working day is from 7am to 5pm,
but of course that all changes on match days. On a
normal training day we have to get all the training
kit ready for the players, then collect it up again,
and wash it, and start all over again. It’s pretty
relentless.
Match days are different. On away matches I
don’t travel up with the team, I drive the van up
with the kit. I’m always worried I’ve forgotten
something, though I never have. Once I accidentally
prepared an XL shirt for a player who’s tiny,
but luckily for me, he didn’t make the bench.
You’ve got to have a good memory in this job,
because all the players like to have things just so.
Most of them like the foot cut off their socks,
nowadays, and they wear ankle socks. Goalkeepers
are generally the fussiest, and, of course, they need
the most gear.
On match days we have to make sure each player
has his boots, and socks, and slips (even those
have to have numbers
on them) and shorts,
and two match shirts,
then work-out shirts,
and work-out tops,
and training bottoms,
and sometimes cycling
shorts and t-shirts and
gloves and hats all laid
out and hung up for
them in the correct part
of the dressing room.
There’s a lot of funny
stories I could tell but
what happens in the dressing room stays in the
dressing room. Here’s one I can tell: when I was at
Derby an Ireland international, who shall remain
nameless, came into the dressing room after a game
complaining his right foot hurt, and when he took
his boot off, his toe was black. He’d been wearing
two left boots. Funny thing was, he’d played a
blinder and won ‘man of the match’.
I watch the home matches standing in the tunnel.
I like standing up, and I can run into the dressing
room if anything’s needed. At away matches I
usually get a seat behind the dug-out.
Everyone’s got a nickname here, and sometimes
more than one. One of my assistants, Matt, is called
‘The Bear’. Another, Alex, is called ‘Minty’ because
he always rolls in after eight. I get ‘Cliff’ and ‘Clint’
and ‘Olive’ and ‘Rigsby’, because I often say ‘no’.
You need a good sense of humour in this job, too.
I’m a frustrated footballer, of course I am. Every
kit man would prefer to be a player. But the best
thing about this job is that you’re slap bang middle
of the professional football world, 24/7.
As told to Alex Leith
....89....

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*On purchases between 15th August and September 30th 2015.
Please enter promotion code EB1615 at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.
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Tel: 01580 830959
E-Bikes Direct Unit 6. Midicy Oast.
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E. Sussex TN32 5UP.
Joy of Movement
Holistic dance for health
A guided class combining simple, flowing and easy to
follow steps with mindful movement for adults of all ages,
fitness levels and experience. Feel balanced, connected
and energised as you find your own natural way of
moving in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.
First taster class free.
Brighton - Wednesdays 11am-12pm (from Sept 23rd)
The Loft (above Little Dippers), Upper Gardner St, Brighton, BN1 4AN
Lewes - Thursdays 10.30 - 11.30am (Ongoing)
Cliffe Hall, St Thomas a Becket, Cliffe High St, Lewes BN7 2AH
Drop in £8, or 5 classes for £35 (Concessions available)
Call Stella on 07733 450631
Email: stellahomewood@yahoo.com
www.stellahomewood.com

cycling
...........................................
Jon Chickens
Bespoke steel-bike-frame maker
Jon Chickens is one
of only about a dozen
people in the country
who hand-makes
steel bike frames,
and he does this in a
converted shipping
container just north
of Woodingdean, in
a beautiful location
overlooking a secret
valley.
Photo by Alex Leith
I park my bike while he busies around making
me coffee, and getting me a folding chair to sit
in, outside his micro-factory, which has a fairly
ramshackle extension built on the side.
Jon, fortyish and scruffy-cool, originally trained,
he tells me, to be an astrophysicist. I can tell within
seconds that he’s driven by passion for his trade.
He shows me his left wrist, revealing scars from
a healed-up break. “I came off my bike in 2008,
while I was a commissaire trying out a course I’d
designed for Brighton Big Dog,” he says. “I was
working for Enigma [bike-frame firm] at the time,
but sadly couldn’t continue working for them with
a bust wrist”
When he says he fell off ‘his’ bike, he means it
literally. “You can’t believe how good it feels to
ride something you’ve made yourself,” he says.
He’s made them for many other people besides,
using traditional, old-fashioned methods. While he
produces frames which are sold on by top-notch
companies like Mosquito, he really prides himself
on a bespoke service whereby he meets his client,
measures them up and goes for a ride with them
to check out their style, and builds them a frame
to exactly suit their needs. It takes him about three
or four days to make
a frame – always
of steel, with tubes
sourced in Italy, or
Birmingham – and
a day or two to
paint it (that’s what
the extension’s for).
That’s an output of
approximately one
frame every five or six
days: there’s a threemonth
waiting list for his services. His frames start
at £1,000. “All of my trade comes from word of
mouth,” he says. Brighton boasts an “incredibly
large community” of people in the bike business,
many of whom have helped him set up from
scratch, especially his clothing partner, Morvelo.
Many of his frames are sold locally, but as his fame
spreads, so does the distance he sends them: “I also
have customers in Australia and the States.”
He shows me the specialist machinery he uses,
all of which he’s bought second hand, and whose
previous owners he can name; then he tells me lots
of technical stuff about the process, which I only
half understand. “When someone buys a frame
from me,” he says, “they know it’s a frame for life.”
He doesn’t just build frames; he also repairs them,
if your existing bike needs “some life breathing
back into it.”
‘Chickens’ isn’t his real surname. “It’s my mountain-biking
nickname,” he says. And also the name
of his company ‘Chicken Frames Emporium’. If
ever you need a bespoke steel frame, for any sort of
bike, I reckon he’s your go-to man.
Alex Leith
Chickens Frame Emporium 07941 779903
....91....

we try...
......................................
Floatation Tank
Floating in a salty wonderland…
“I feel like Peter Pan”
says a man with a ridiculously
relaxed look on
his face, as he leaves the
Cocoon Centre. I know
exactly where he’s coming
from. I had the same
experience two days
earlier, and I’m back for
more.
I knew very little about
therapeutic floating,
other than that people go to the Dead Sea for that
purpose, so, before my first visit, I had no preconceptions.
Proprietor Emma D’Arcy explains that
Cocoon offer two floating experiences, one in a
one-person pod, and the other in a larger 8.5 foot
cube, filled with approximately 18 inches of Epsom
salt-laden water, which I’m going to experience.
They always aim to give new floaters the larger
tank for their first float, I’m told, partly to limit
any risk of claustrophobia.
I climb out of the shower and open the doors of
the spacious tank. The water is set at skin temperature
so you don’t really notice it, which apparently
helps with the overall feeling of relaxation. Soothing
music is playing, and the space is lit both by
underwater lights and by sparkling star-like roof
lights. I initially sit on the floor, before letting my
legs drift upwards. Emma has advised me to put
my hands behind my head, which I do, and immediately
I’m floating. Initially, though, my mind
is racing. Are my legs actually floating? Will my
head sink if I removed my hands? Is it OK that I’m
naked? Will I fall asleep? Flip over? Drown? The
answers are, categorically: yes, no, yes, yes, no, no.
Emma has assured me
of all these things before
I go in, but there’s
nothing like confirming
it for yourself. As
my mind starts to calm
down, I turn off the
underwater lights with
the well placed foot
switch and concentrate
on the lights above
me. At the same time,
I notice the music quietening down, and start to
enjoy the sense of weightlessness. At times I feel
like I’m drifting, but every time I open my eyes, I
seem to be in the same place. The next time I open
my eyes, I realise that the outside lights are back
on and my hour is up. I’d fallen asleep for maybe
30 minutes, but felt as refreshed as from a deep
long sleep.
A couple of days later I talk through the experience
with Emma. She is passionate about both the
relaxation and healing benefits of floating - allocating
a number of free sessions per month for therapeutic
floatation. She confirms that the inanelooking
grin experienced by me and Peter Pan is
not unusual, and surprisingly (to me anyway), the
fact that more men than women float. “It’s probably
because it’s usually a solo activity and men
tend to be a little more wary of group activities”
she says. As I leave the centre, thinking briefly of
my various slightly embarrassing attempts at yoga
and Pilates classes, I realise I fall into that category.
Solo floating? I’ll sign up to that… Nick Williams
Cocoon Healing Arts Centre, 20-22 Gloucester
Place, cocoonfloatationtherapy.co.uk/01273 686882
....92....

luffers’ guide to
...........................................
Making a feature film
Jamie Patterson from Jump Start Productions
Don’t bother with
shorts. Who watches
shorts? They’re a waste
of time: it’s easier than
you might think to make
a feature film. I’ve made
12. [Jamie is 28 years
old, and the co-owner
of Brighton-based Jump
Start Productions].
Start with a script, like
every film does. You could write it, or buy it off
the internet: there are hundreds knocking around.
Make sure you format it right: there’s free software
on the internet for that, too.
Make sure the script fits your budget. With a
low budget, choose a script with very few locations
and just two or three actors. I had £100 for the first
film I made, having been given a great camera as an
18th birthday present. I shot most of it in my parents’
house, in five days. Now I’m raising budgets
of £100,000, so that gives me more scope. But we
still shoot in 10-12 days.
Your film is only as good as your actors’ performances.
So choose carefully. Remember that 85%
of actors are unemployed at any given time, and
that what most of them really want to do is to act
in feature films. So if you’re making a film, you’d
be surprised how cheaply you can hire people that
you’ve heard of.
If you need a soundtrack, use unsigned local
bands’ music. They’ll do it for the publicity.
Don’t ever give up. The world is full of half-made
feature films. If you get the reputation of being
able to finish a film, people will come to you. I have
never not finished a film I started.
Editing is the hardest
job. It took me two
years to edit my first
film. If you can afford
it, get yourself a good
editor, if you can’t,
download some good
software, and be patient.
Don’t worry if the
film isn’t brilliant.
There is no such thing
as a perfect film. The worst thing you can be in
this business is a perfectionist, because there are so
many compromises that need to be made. Anyway
you will learn from your mistakes. Every film I
make I become a better director.
I’m a producer, as well as director and scriptwriter.
Producing means raising the cash to make
the film, basically. My advice is to investigate
crowd-funding your film. In effect you sell perks to
people who want to invest. You can raise money by
just thanking somebody in the credits.
When you have made your film, enter it into
every festival you can think of. There are hundreds
of them out there. You’re unlikely to get into
Cannes or Sundance, but don’t worry.
Oh, and if you get a film into a festival, make
sure that you go to that festival, because you’re
more likely to win something. And that’s a big bonus.
We won Best Film at the Madrid International
Film Festival with City of Dreamers, which was massive,
for us, and put us on the world map.
As told to Alex Leith
Jump Start have two films in development, one in
pre-production and three in post-production.
jumpstartproductions.co.uk
....93....

All talk
and no
vote?
You need
to make sure that
you’re on the
updated electoral
register, or you
might not be able to
vote in future.
Register online
now at
www.gov.uk/
register-to-vote
Electoral Services, Brighton & Hove City Council
Visit us at www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/vote
Email electors@brighton-hove.gov.uk
or call 01273 291999

trade secrets
......................................
Sarah Springford
Brighton Chamber of Commerce Director
‘Brighton Chamber of
Commerce’. Isn’t that
a bit of a stuffy name?
We tend to shorten it to
‘Brighton Chamber’. We
thought about changing
it, but decided that
instead we would show
that we are very far from
being stuffy by making
sure our branding, copy,
photos, videos and social media are reflective of
how friendly, lively, exciting and relevant we are.
What’s the organisation for? How long have
you got? We organise events which help our
members network with other business people in
the community, as well as ‘bite-sized learning’
skill-sharing sessions where members pass on their
knowledge of business-related subjects, from intellectual
property to handling social media. Plus
much, much more, from being the voice of the
business community in Brighton to helping our
members with any advice they might need.
How long has it been going? We recently
celebrated our centenary; the company has been
running in its current form for about 15 years. I
was offered the job as director six-and-a-half years
ago. The job was only meant to last 18 months,
but I’m delighted still to be here.
Is your membership growing? When I joined
there were 213 members. Now there are over 500.
In the last three months alone we have attracted
60 new members. There’s no reason for that
growth to stop. I’d like to see 2,000 members!
But your operation is quite small… Sometimes
people’s jaws drop when they come to our offices
in Hove, and realise what a small company we
are. We have four full-time
staff, including myself. But
what’s exciting is that we
also have around 50 volunteers,
from businesses in
the city, who help out with
elements like design, copywriting,
PR, running sessions,
and making podcasts.
A lot of my time is spent
co-ordinating the volunteer
team to make sure we promote what they’re doing
and that they get something out of it.
I hear you’re moving? Before your magazine goes
to press we’ll have moved, for a limited period of
12-18 months, to the new Entrepreneurial Spark
near Preston Park, a business hub run by the social
entrepreneur Jim Duffy. We are to be one of three
‘anchor companies’ there. It’s very exciting.
How’s Brighton doing, business-wise? I’d say
business is booming. There are a lot of small
companies here, and a lot of start-ups. The only
problem is wages: workers tend to be paid less
than they do in nearby towns like Guildford and
Crawley. Which is why we have started the only
business-led ‘living wage’ campaign in the country,
possibly the world.
Is there any reason why not to set up in
Brighton? Good affordable office space is really
hard to find.
Have you got a tip for anyone who’s starting
up a company in Brighton? Do a lot of research
before you get going. And make sure that you tap
into all the support and help there is on offer in
Brighton for businesses. Interview by Alex Leith
businessinbrighton.org.uk, annual membership
from £12.50 per month
....95....

We asked a few of our students what they like about the
Counselling and Psychotherapy training at The Link Centre...
“the training... it’s interactive, thought-provoking
and challenging as well as supportive and fun!”
“a fabulous learning environment - the tutors are inspiring
and the people I have met come from all walks of life,
which adds to the richness of the learning experience.”
㜀 㜀 㠀 㘀 㔀 㔀 㜀 㤀 㤀 㠀
䤀 一 䘀 伀 䀀 䈀 伀 䐀 夀 ⴀ 䠀 䄀 倀 倀 夀 ⸀ 䌀 伀 ⸀ 唀 䬀
圀 圀 圀 ⸀ 䈀 伀 䐀 夀 ⴀ 䠀 䄀 倀 倀 夀 ⸀ 䌀 伀 ⸀ 唀 䬀
倀 䔀 刀 匀 伀 一 䄀 䰀 吀 刀 䄀 䤀 一 䤀 一 䜀 䤀 一 䄀
倀 刀 䤀 嘀 䄀 吀 䔀 Ⰰ 䘀 唀 䰀 䰀 夀 ⴀ 䔀 儀 唀 䤀 倀 倀 䔀 䐀
匀 吀 唀 䐀 䤀 伀 䤀 一 䌀 䔀 一 吀 刀 䄀 䰀 䠀 伀 嘀 䔀
∠ 䘀 刀 䔀 䔀 䤀 一 䤀 吀 䤀 䄀 䰀 䌀 伀 一 匀 唀 䰀 吀 䄀 吀 䤀 伀 一
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www.thelinkcentre.co.uk
email: leilani@thelinkcentre.co.uk
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Mohammed - Spice of Life
Fresh, home-cooked Bangladeshi and Goan speciality dishes
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Unit 19, e Open Market
07985176812
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icks and mortar
..........................................
A facelift for Fabrica
And a ‘floating cube’, too
You’d be forgiven for not knowing about the new
extension to Brighton’s beloved Duke Street art
gallery Fabrica. The project, funded by the Arts
Council and designed by Brighton-based CDMS
Architects, has been on the table since 2012, but
building will start in September.
I meet CDMS Director Corin Morton and Architect
Tom Wainewright, to find out more about the
attractive ‘floating’ cube they will append to the
deconsecrated church. It’s a compact addition, comprising
three stories of modest office and storage
space to the rear and a new glazed ‘shopfront’ on
Duke Street. The size belies the build’s importance,
however, as Corin says, “It will enable Fabrica to do
what they do so well, properly,” freeing them from
having to run the charity, and its network of about
90 volunteers, from inadequately-sized offices. As
Corin says, “you put in extra effort because you’re
doing it for the right people and the right organisation.
What they do is just brilliant.”
Its compactness also compounds the build’s difficulty,
says Tom: “it’s essentially a big juggling act.
The amount of complexity does not reflect the size
of the finished building, but it probably does reflect
its cultural importance in Brighton… We’ve said
a few times, you could probably build something
ten times the size with the amount of drawings and
details we are producing for it.”
The intricacy of the build is a big part of what has
Corin and Tom fired up about the project. “The
least interesting thing for an architect,” says Corin,
“is to ask them to design a building where there’s
no point of reference, there’s no challenge.” A big
obstacle here is the access, as the space borders a
‘landlocked’ pocket of Dukes Yard. “One of the
intriguing things about this, is it’s going to be this
hidden gem that few people actually ever see,” explains
Corin. “It’s made us all the more determined
to make sure that it’s a really interesting piece of
architecture.”
I’m personally attracted to the Fabrica extension because
of its modernity. Slim, glazed panels partition
the extension from the brick and flint of the original
Grade II listed church. As Corin says, “It needs to
be distinct”. His thinking may be challenging, but it
reflects how the church has been developed in the
past: originally sporting a stucco façade, then the addition
of a gothic revival front. “It’s changed materials
and styles all over the years,” says Corin. “The
most logical thing to do was to change it again.”
I ask if there is much difference between the sorts
of builds commissioned in Brighton to elsewhere.
“The unfortunate truth is it can be quite difficult
to get interesting architecture built in Brighton,”
replies Corin. The heritage, geography and the
varying interests of community groups can make it
hard to build, especially for contemporary projects.
“Where this seems to be happening more easily is
within the larger institutions such as the university,”
he says, “but whether that trickles down is another
matter… [Brighton] has to continue to embrace
modern architecture.” Chloë King
cdmsarchitects.com
....97....

inside left: STREET PARTY, 1953
...................................................................................
These kids, decked out in fancy dress, are celebrating the Coronation, at a street party on June 2nd,
1953. Little will most of them know it, but the New England Street houses either side of them were
not to last the end of the decade: they were already earmarked for demolition.
The development between London Road and the railway line was built in 1850, ten years after
Brighton Station opened, largely in order to house the many workers involved in the new industry.
The land was previously used for the growth of arable, and this street and the area took on the name
of the farm it was built on – New England Farm. The new quarter, according to the late city historian
James Gray, was constructed ‘with little regard to density per acre, the chief object seemingly
being to build as many houses in as small a space as possible’. In 1950 much of it was chosen by
Brighton Corporation as ‘Area Number 1’ for slum clearance.
There was, however, little wrong with the structure of the houses, and, as you can see from this and
other pictures, the area was home to quite a thriving community. The old New England Street was
eventually demolished in 1958/9, and many of the structures you can now see on the new widened
version, including New England House, were built in its place. Of course the redevelopment of the
area has continued, in various stages, to this day.
We sourced the photo from the Queens Park Books photo library, and it was contributed to that
excellent archive by Nicola Preston, whose father you can see in the picture. He is the pirate in the
centre of the group; the cowboy in the splendid chaps next to him is his mate Ray Brindley. If we
were judging the costumes, we’d really rate the Francis Drake, the Beefeater, the Pierrot and the Britannia,
but we’d have to give the top prize to the little jockey on the right of the group. Does anyone
know what became of this little chap?
....98....

Lancing College
Preparatory School at Hove
AN INDEPENDENT DAY SCHOOL FOR BOYS AND GIRLS FROM NURSERY TO YEAR EIGHT
RATED EXCELLENT IN ALL AREAS
INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS INSPECTORATE REPORT, MARCH 2015
Join us for our
Open Morning
Saturday 10 October 2015
10.00am - 12 noon
www.lancingcollege.co.uk
The Droveway Hove
Tel 01273 503452
East Sussex BN3 6LU
hove@lancing.org.uk
Registered Charity Number 1076483

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OPEN EVENTS
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