We saw out Lewes Catalyst Club in 2024 in with a talk from myself about the musician and poet Ivor Cutler followed by a full-length talk from Anthony Grant who shared the remarkable story of how in the 80s, and whilst still living with his mum, he persuaded dozens of A-list celebrities to be photographed in his tiny bedroom.

We return Jan 8th with three new speakers: David Bradford, Caraline Brown and Alan Jackson.

Our final Catalyst Club of the year was a corker, thanks to our brilliant guest speakers. Clarissa Shanahan took us through her artistic response to an anonymous woman’s photo album of a 1933 Grand Tour. Diarmuid Hester left us on a cliffhanger as to the fate of surrealist artist Claude Cahun after she and her partner were arrested by the Nazis in 1945 and sentenced to death for circulating seditious material. Mark Dishman ended the night with a comedic deep-dive into The Twelve Days of Christmas, a song he cheerfully admits to hating.
We’re back to our regular second Thursdays at the Nightingale Room on Jan 9th with Mark Sheerin, Caraline Brown and Patrick Clarke.

In December we heard how 17-year old Noah Matthews Matofsky became a Hollywood actor; I gave a talk about the artist Ivor Cutler and Matthew Homewood shared his knowledge and expertise in the field of genealogy.
We’re back Jan 21st with Qunitin Barry, Caraline Brown and Lynne Murphy (TBC).

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.