Lewes Catalyst Club Wed March 12th
For March we welcome artist Clarissa Shaharan, Ian Dowdlng and Elissa Phillips.
Brighton Catalyst Club March 13th
February’s Catalyst saw our most passionate Q&A for many years. Thank you Chris Hogg for such an engaging, thoughtful and balanced approach to the many issues around AI and creativity – a triggering topic for many. Also on the night, novelist and broadcaster Rebecca Stott shared her knowledge and passion for Darwin and his eight-year research into barnacles and their sex lives while Chris Roberts took us on a colourful journey through the parks of South London. The night opened with Jane Bom-Bane’s new Catalyst Club residency and an enchanting poem accompanied by images from the late Tom Walker.
For March we welcome Lewes’ Mathew Homewood, Deborah Sim and Ben ‘the politics of board games’ Bailey.
Shoreham Catalyst Club March 18th
In February Linsay McCulloch gave an entertaining talk about 80s action hero Steven Seagal, David Bradford took us into the heart of darkness of our colonial legacies and familial connections. The night ended with Chris Hogg exploring the (relatively) unchartered territory of AI and creativity, a hot topic for many.
We’re back in March with artist Clarissa Shanahan, author Tom Cutler and Mark Sheerin.
Theatre Show: Mark Farrelly's Jarman
Derek Jarman: film-maker, painter, gardener at Prospect Cottage, gay rights activist, writer…his influence remains as strong as it was on the day AIDS killed him in 1994. But his story, one of the most extraordinary lives ever lived, has never been told. Until now.
This vibrant new solo play from Mark Farrelly (Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope) brings Derek back into being for a passionate, daring reminder of the courage it takes to truly live while you’re alive. A journey from Dungeness to deepest, brightest Soho and into the heart of one of our most iconoclastic artists.
Jarman’s works include taboo-breaking films like Sebastiane, Jubilee and Caravaggio, pop videos for the Pet Shop Boys (It’s A Sin and Rent), his extraordinary borderless garden in Dungeness, his shocking last paintings, and his unforgettable final film Blue, consisting of a single continuous frame of blue and chronicling what it’s like to lose your sight…but never your artistic vision.
Mark dazzled Catalyst Club audiences in 2022 and 2023 with his theatre shows exploring the lives of Quentin Crisp, Patrick Hamilton and Frankie Howerd and his partner Dennis Haymer. Jarman is the fourth of Mark’s quartet exploring the lives – both personal and creative – of pioneering queer artists.
Odditorium Presents: Youth Gone Wild: Teds, Mods, Rockers and the Styles That Shock Up the Nation!
What better location than Brighton Pier for an evening exploring Britain’s first youth counterculture with guests Travis Elborough and Max Décharné?
This special event will begin at 7pm with a complimentary screening of We Are the Lambeth Boys, Karel Reisz’s 1959 depiction of South London teens aimed to challenge the media perception of ‘Teddy Boys’. (49mins/BFI).
From 8pm there will be illustrated talks from Max and Travis, ending with the pair in conversation and an audience Q&A.
Max Décharné: Teddy Boys
Musician and author Max Décharné tells the story of Britain’s first youth counterculture. With their draped suits, suede creepers and immaculately greased hair, the Teds defined a new era for a generation of teenagers raised on a diet of drab clothes, Blitz playgrounds and tinned dinners.
Travis Elborough: Mods and Rockers
It’s over 60 years since fighting broke out on Britain’s beaches between those rival style tribes the mods and rockers, an event that Travis Elborough chronicles in his acclaimed book Wish You Were Here: England on Sea. He will explore the emergence of these contrasting youth cults, one razor sharp smart, the other leather-clad and hairy, and examines just what got them fighting on the beaches just two decades after the war.
Afterwards, in conversation, Max Décharné and Travis Elborough will discuss the shockwaves these youth tribes caused in their eras and what legacy remains of these grassroots working class fashions and the music that set them dancing.
Max Décharné has written about music regularly for Mojo magazine since 1998, prior to which he wrote extensively about film for Neon. Décharné is probably one of the only people currently writing about music to have played on BBCTV’s Later… with Jools Holland show, at Madison Square Garden and at the Hollywood Bowl.
Travis Elborough is the Shoreham-born author of many books, including Wish You Were Here: England on Sea, The Long-Player Goodbye, Through the Looking Glasses: The Spectacular Life of Spectacles and Atlas of Vanishing Places, winner of Edward Stanford Travel Book Award in 2020. He is described by the Guardian as ‘one of the country’s finest pop culture historians’.
Dress code: DA, drainpipes, drape coat, brothel-creepers, slim-jim tie, flick-knife/comb.
Ivor Cutler, Brian Eno on Clarinet, David Bramwell and Jane Bom-Bane
Entertaining Talks on Outsider Music with David Bramwell
(Plus a song or two from David and Jane Bom-Bane)
Why did the world’s worst orchestra split up at the peak of their powers? Who were they? Why did Brian Eno join them on clarinet? Did they really shock the classical world and get banned from the airwaves, despite a Top 20 hit?
This entertaining and thought-provoking talk uncovers the group’s unique history, offers (hilarious) recordings and rare film footage and asks Zappa’s famous question: does humour belong in music?
Poet and musician Ivor Cutler is best-known for his funny, surreal and bittersweet poems and songs. He was also interested in silence, Zen philosophy and nonsense. A lifelong fan of Cutler’s work, in 2018 David presented Ivor Cutler at 90 as a BBC R4 Archive on Four and has twice performed onstage with Ivor’s partner Phyllis King. In this second talk David explore’s what made this dour Scotsman such a unique talent and reveals how his own, strange relationship with Ivor led to his being given access to an extensive archive of Cutler’s work. Expect plenty of pregnant pauses, knees pickled in cheese and a harmonium drenched song or two at the end from David and Jane.