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
Woby* stumbles over the entrance step, wrong-footed by a couple squatting right inside the bloody door, grabs onto the barbed-wire-and-fairy-lights-festooned tailor’s dummy to steady themself, and realises that the door blocking couple aren’t thoughtless bastards, but had been pushed to the back of a very large crowd. Sid Vicious (his portrait) sneers over the whole club as usual and the pineal eye in Woby’s head feels Sid’s scorn. The place
Still on Brighton Road, still hoping to find some Worthing BME voices – because I so often move in spaces where I’m part of an un-noticed whiteness. Whiteness: default by-and-as privilege, overwhelming. This can leave the blog very unbalanced. I dodge into Mockingbird Cafe – a place which sometimes feels, if anything, like a little bit of London, more than anything Brightonian (unless we’re going with the line that B’town
Unresponsive screen. Again. Trudging resignedly to the nearest phone repair shop. “£65”. “But it’s not cracked, just slow?” “Screen needs replacing”. Cross the road for second opinion. Same guy pops up behind the counter. “Same price here, £65” he grins. Energised by piss-off, trot along to a 3rd shop. Exact same phone cases cases, same sideline of same fidget-spinners, but no sign of pop-up man. A middle-aged English jack-the-lad with
From this lookout, you’ll see three jewellery shops. Three! A slightly terrifying upmarket looking one, with antique gold and unusual vintage and collectors’ pieces in the window; a somewhat less terrifying one, which is promising ‘gold purchase’ for those who are in the extremes of hard times or flush with unwanted inheritance pieces; and an upbeat modern European one, full of Italian branded smart design and not too proud to
They skip past the brand new picnic blankets, unfathomably priced at twice the rate of supermarket ones, but still a rapidly reducing pile each time they visit. Ladies separates is the goal today, and they happily grab the best bits fast and make for the friendly blonde cashier. While she’s ringing up the bargains (two pairs of trousers for a tenner! One Top Shop and one M & S!), they
‘Sold! ‘Sold! ‘Sold!’ boasts the window in an exhausting hyperbole of celebration. Plenty of bungalows, just as we suspected there would be. But town houses too. And – look! – some smart contemporary flats designed for urban commuter living (if you’re unlucky enough to be a South-eastern rail customer). Or perhaps they’re intended as cool cutting-edge residence for co-working start-up entrepreneurs who don’t need – or want – to confuse
Some days, cycling up this hill is desperately difficult, but in today’s morning sunshine – not yet vicious – the air feels thin and pliable, parting to let me move through it. The thought of the next corner pulls me on as much as does my appointment – strict timing, no latecomers allowed – at a gym class at Splashpoint. My pedals slow and I let out an anticipatory snorty-laugh
The barista’s tattoos are beautifully done – multi-coloured swoops and curls of dramatic shapes. It makes you a bit dizzy to look at them as you sideways-squint, trying to make out the images, trying not to be too stare-bear, while she focuses on not getting scalded by the heavyweight high-end machine. She looks up and catches you looking a bit too intensely. You smoothe it over by asking what the