Sunday morning, 9.30 am, a Worthing dance studio. Oddly (if you’re used to choreography and dance as a practice of rigorous self-correction), black-out blinds blank out all the full wall mirrors. Like No Lights, No Lycra then, this looks like one of those places where we’re being encouraged to let go of self-consciousness and drop into our bodies, uncensored by fears of being ridiculous or not moving ‘right’. Shoes off,
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
70s night! Rock Sizemore, DJ, is long and lean, with legs like Rob Evans’ – but encased in brown crimplene flares. Rock’s hair is also pretty super-model: almost white blonde, to the collar, wavy; and with a zapata mussie to match. As you’d expect, his shirt does not let the rest of his outfit down and we’re not even attempting a description here, without the benefit of psychoactive drugs. We’re on the
Sensing movement, Woby* grabs the hem of the Bard’s cloak. The rush pulls Woby in and makes terrifying MRI scan noises as the energetic Bard flips upside down, makes the necessary secret hand gestures, and thereby gets sucked through the angelic wings. It’s not ideal to go through a portal by holding onto somebody else, but Woby hasn’t yet managed to get those hand gestures right, much less perfect a
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
Wandering along Brighton Road, I overhear a leisurely but intense and highly detailed conversation about Worthing events. I gauge probable friendliness and interrupt the pair, explaining that I’m intruding because they sound like real insiders who know Worthing well, are passionate about it, and probably have informed opinions about The Question. Whoa! I’ve opened a tinderbox. Worthing is not the new Brighton. Brighton is culturally diverse and it meets all
There’s no official lgbtq network, no meetups, no Worthing pride (yet?), but there’s loads of queer folk. This has been true since very long back. These days, the – sometimes quite genteel – discreet older queer crowd has new company. Is this elder flight from youth-worshipping Brighton, white crawl from London? It might be evidence of a generational later-life shift in priorities and needs – less clubbing, more gardening. Naturally,
We’re in The Orchard cafe for their vegan tea event. There’s 7 of us, in a chock-full cafe (tickets sold out weeks ago), and we look around in wonder, interested to know who are the vegan-or-vegan-curious of Worthing, then? There’s an all-ages crowd, including some very glamorous young folks, a sprinkling of beard-and-tattoo dudes, at least one person who has been vegan since the 1970s – and a baby whose
There’s about 40 of us hiding, crammed into the dancefloor area at Rustington Manor Hotel Hotel (yes – stretching the ‘Greater Worthing’ concept to its limit, but the family are Worthing folks). We’re trying to hush the over-excited and primped up children but not setting much of an example ourselves. The DJ (dandyish – red trousers, pink waistcoat) is not helping. “She’s left the house! She’s just 2 minutes away