Architects, rejoice! For the space does make the place.

By Caroline Osella|March 27, 2018|Do You Belong to Worthing?, Uncategorized, Worthing|2 comments

The matinee audience for Northbrook’s Little Shop of Horrors is mostly students and families, but the cast gives as if they were on Broadway, with a tight and well-choreographed chorus and four protagonists who compel us into their world. I forget that Mushnik is not actually a middle-aged NY Jewish momma, so assured and technically strong is Emma Cobby’s performance. Joshua Rennells’ DDS pulls us in with a queasy and complex mix of attraction and terror: part southern-baptist, part Fonz-Elvis, a nod towards Christian Grey and a hint of Dennis Hopper – a horribly recognisable (or imaginable) nightmare-boyfriend.

I need to hear more from these teen creatives. How do Northbrookers fit – or not – into Worthing?  Do they belong?

I’m born and bred in Worthing, but Northbrook is not Worthing. I just don’t like Worthing, it’s still quite far behind in its views and that’s because of the people who live here. The young people here get influenced by the older people, they pass down their views. Cos, it’s like, in a country area. We’re not like Brighton, we’re not like a city mentality – we’re like farmers in comparison.

In Worthing you still have single-sex schools. At the boys’ school, if you are not good at sport, and even if you are good at math, you are fucked. You have to properly carry on doing sport right to 16. It’s like this big testosterone competition of who is more manly. And the girls’ school is all home tech and stuff.

Yeah, Worthing schools are so old fashioned and gender segregated with roles. And the girls and boys walk past in groups and do not look at each other; guys don’t know how to act around girls and it makes them objectifying. People create their own genders at Northbrook – it’s a bit confusing but you just accept it – it’s a miniature Kemptown. 

Northbrook is really welcoming for all different kinds of artsy people, so you get grunge style, goth types, very Coachella kinds of looks …

Northbrook is not Worthing: Northbrook is home to hipsters: they make their own clothes, they listen to hipster-ish kind of music, Indie, Woodstock, old bands, band music.  The music of Worthing would be more mainstream, like, grime is very big in Worthing, the white grime scene: people like Soph Aspin.

I just don’t feel like the 2 cultures of Worthing and Northbrook mix very well, I think the people born in Worthing tend to stay in Worthing, but the Northbrook students are all like, ‘I want to leave’.  

For people from places like Barnham, Worthing is their town. People commute to Northbrook from all over – Crawley, Bognor, Three Bridges, and I feel like Northbrook is a place that could bring change to Worthing, if we could reach out and influence. Maybe MetFest will help. 

Northbrook is not Worthing, in the sense of even the (Durrington) building is very different from Worthing style. It’s artsy, modern. And the Broadwater campus building sticks out – I kind of like it.

I’m very excited about Teville Gate, it sounds like it is gonna be a futuristic architectural place – that’s the direction of Worthing. The pics show it clean looking too – it was just needles in Teville  Gate, so many needles. Also,Teville Gate had a very negative presence, it was a suicide hotspot,

I wish Worthing was more like a town – even the shops are old looking, villagey. I wish Worthing had proper new buildings, new pavements – pavements say a lot about a place.

I wish Worthing was more like Northbrook.