Brighton Catalyst Club April 10th
In March Deborah Sim –in a fetching red cape – took us on a tour of her curated Museum of Sex Objects; Mathew Homewood shared his fascinating work as a genealogist and Ben Bailey took us on a dark but entertaining journey into the lives of ‘Rock’s No1 power couple’: Meatloaf and Jim Steinman.
We return with ROSA magazine co-founder Alex Leith, artist Becky Edmunds (who’s first Catalyst talk was about the discovery of fifty years worth of one man’s diaries in a dump in Hove) and Robert Senior, cinephile and founder of Lewes’ Depot Cinema.
And of course there will be another performance from Brighton’s living legend that is Jane Bom-Bane!
Catalyst Club Ropetackle Shoreham April 15th
Three brilliant talks as always this month. Our guest speakers are: two celebrity members of Shoreham’s boating community, Shoreham Wordfest co-founder Rosalind turner and marine environmentalist Elissa Philips. Topics to be revealed on the night!
Lewes Catalyst Club Wed April 16th
In March marine conservationist Elissa Philips took us on watery journey down 10,000 metres to explore the myriad strange creatures of our ocean’s depths; artist Clarissa Shanahan took us across land on a 1933 Grand Tour and Ian Dowding – creator of the Banoffi PIe – gave a talk about….banoffi pie!
We’re back on the third Wednesday this month with poet Della Reynolds, artist Becky Edmunds and art researcher and writer Mark Sheerin.
All wonderful topics and speakers.
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.
Odditorium Presents: VISIONARY SUSSEX ARTISTS WITH STANLEY DONWOOD, JIM SANDERS, SCHERZO FOUNDATION
A very special night at Horatio’s Bar, Brighton Pier with films, conversation and talks exploring the work of some of Sussex’s most inspiring, visionary artists. Emma Carlow, Jo Lamb and Isobel Smith will share how they came to dodge art world gate keepers – and allow themselves limitless imaginary funds to enable their creative imaginations to run riot – through the creation of an imaginary Arts Foundation, Fondamento Scherzo.
There will be films and Q&A with Brighton’s Spirit House creator Jim Sanders, a short documentary with The Flint Grotto creator Rory McCormack and, in conversation with host David Bramwell, Radiohead, The Smile and Robert McFarlane collaborator, artist Stanley Donwood.
Stanley Donwood is best-known for the graphics and covers of all Radiohead albums since 1994 and, more recently, album artwork for The Smile. He also creates the artwork for Glastonbury Festival and for many years has illustrated book covers for Robert Macfarlane books, including Underland and 2025’s Is A River Alive? A prolific artist and writer, he is the author of many books including There Will Be No Quiet, Ness and Bad Island. His work veers from the apocalyptic to hallucinatory visions of nature. He’s particularly fond of trees.
www.slowlydownward.com
Jim Sanders is a Brighton-based artist working predominantly in drawing, painting, collage and constructed sculpture, to create large scale installations and immersive environments.
Jim is best known as creator of The Spirit House a monumental art installation that Sanders effectively inhabits. Shaman-like rituals and performances take place in the Spirit House referencing a vast range of visual languages and anthropological connections to pull the past into the present and frame the essential questions of existence.
@sansjimsanders
The Fondamento Dello Scherzo is an arts foundation invented by Emma Carlow, Jo Lamb and Isobel Smith in order to dodge art world gate keepers, and allow themselves limitless imaginary funds to enable their creative imaginations to run riot. In the summer of 2022 their fictional benefactors generously funded an imaginary trip to Japan. In 2023 the Sussex village of Slynde was invented, with tales centred around a Priory, an anchorite, a pantomime-horse burial site, a box of old puppets and a bogey man, the Earl of Slynde. In 2024, they exhibited their Slynde findings at Glynde Place, and they delved deeper into the character and pursuits of their imaginary backers, Gloria, Lorenzo and Fabrice Scherzo. The artists continue to swerve and merge fantasy and reality, and have been excited to see the Scherzo family take on a life of their own.
@fondamento_scherzo_
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.
The Cult of Water & Vera Zakharov’s Riverine Resurrections: A history and celebration of the Irrepressible Waterways of Sussex
David Bramwell’s The Cult of Water & Vera Zakharov’s Riverine Resurrections: A history and celebration of the Irrepressible Waterways of Sussex
The Cult of Water David Bramwell
Combining music, animation and archive film with a captivating monologue, David Bramwell takes audiences on a dreamy candle-lit journey, in search of the supernatural secrets of our rivers, and a drowned village which has long haunted his memories.
Aided by a witch and the magician-author Alan Moore, Bramwell travels back in time to unearth the myths and rituals of our rivers, and their symbolic association with feminine power.
Can he face his demons and unravel the symbolic mysteries of our ancient ancestors? Who is the mysterious Vulcan? And will there be a pie and a pint waiting for him at the end of it all?
Riverine Resurrections: A history and celebration of the irrepressible waterways of Sussex (30mins)
Whatever happened to Sore and Ūsa, those Sussex sisters who untwined themselves from the lower Weald and snaked down to the sea? They’re still here, cut up and shackled but slowly reclaiming and revealing their old selves.
Humans have an ambivalent relationship with waterways, perceived as nourishers of the body and soul, and yet demonised (much like the deities associated with them) and used and abused as the sewers of humankind.
Vera Zakharov takes a personal, cartographic and queer ecological journey along the abstracted and re-emerging waterways of the local area to discover what nature can teach us of our own liberation.