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PREVIEW: There’s no place like Hove for the holidays!

Resound and Rebelles present Hove for the Holidays 2015.

Resound Male Voices
Resound Male Voices

If you’ve ever spent Christmas in Palmeira Square or taken a Yuletide stroll through St Ann’s Well Garden, you’ll agree that there’s no place like Hove for the holidays!

Resound Male Voices, a Brighton and Hove based male singing group and women’s jazz choir Rebelles present a unique evening of beautiful music and a few laughs in the run up to Christmas.

The groups, both led by opera singer and vocal coach Stefan Holmström, will be performing an eclectic range of music from Swedish folk and American bee bop to classical works by Karl Jenkins and Eric Whittacre. Eclectic, magical, and humorous, Hove for the Holidays is no ordinary Christmas concert.

Rebelles
Rebelles

Stefan Holmström, says: “These two groups offer something really special in their collaborations, going from simple unison to ravishing 8 part harmony. Don’t miss it for the world!” 

Special guests for the evening include jazz pianist and song writer Charlotte Brennan and UK Speaker of the Year 2015, Steve Bustin.

Hove For The Holidays will take place on Saturday, December 12 at 7.30pm at St Andrew’s Church, Waterloo Street, Hove BN3 1AQ.

Tickets £12/£10 are available online or directly from choir members. Homemade mulled wine will be available to purchase at the interval.


Event: Hove for the Holidays with Resound and Rebelles

Where: St Andrews Church, Waterloo Street, Hove

When: Saturday, December 10

Time: 7.30pm

Tickets: £12/£10

To book tickets online, click here:

For more information about Resound, click here:

REVIEW: The Force of Destiny: ENO

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Verdi’s The Force of Destiny 

English National Opera

Seen at the ENO for the first time since 1992 and with exciting Calixto Bieito directing this epic opera, it is given a whole new treatment being set in the closing stages of the Spanish Civil War.

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Verdi’s La Forza del Destino is a huge flopping thing, full of wonderful moments that somehow fail to combine to a tremendous event, there’s a lot of flat bits of people doing this and going here and the main characters are so shattered and thrown far and wide that it needs a firm hand or a secure setting to really make it work.  A dying man curses his daughter. Although his death was accidental, she and her lover are forced to flee. Now her brother is on their trail, armed with a dagger and an implacable thirst for revenge. Leonora and Alvaro can run; but can they escape their fate? Setting the action during the Spanish Civil war gave this shattered scattered  feeling a meaning but also failed to defeat this flaw at the opera’s thudding heart.

I was expecting Calixto Bieito to rush at us with a manic technicolor barbarity, all meta-cultural reference and blood but instead he delivered a monochromatic crepuscular grimness that only served to focus the bursts of colour and blood into even more dreadful relief, less is more for once from Bieito. With fascistic Spanish Nationalist flags being unfurled and folk being executed in a line by a female auxiliary suggesting the Sección Femenina it’s clear who is routing for who in this production, although everything else is grey; the morals and political themes are in high relief. There’s some confusing elements added in, a mob ripping and shredding books for no apparent reason other than for theatrical effect or to make a comment about censorship doesn’t help the plot along, but they looked good. His characters are all equality monotone, brute or angels, perverts or hero’s, vicious or filled with kindness.

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I admit to some eye rolling on occasion, and the odd giggle, but overall this was a decent effort. Bieito dragged the plot and narrative to suit this bleak mean vision which failed to overshadow the glorious nuances of Verdi’s music, unintentional (I suspect) but effective none-the-less to throw focus into the shifting harmonic subtleties of this piece.

Rebecca Ringst’s set was wonderful all tilting facades of Spanish houses and shattered, empty spaces. The bold lighting from Tim Mitchell picked out moments of action but also obscured a lot its flickering then blinding changes confusing and dazzling, like the war itself. The huge projections from Sarah Derendinger added a disturbing element to the set, huge boots, marching newsreels of Falange solders and a huge horses head along with apparently dead children and a huge scribbling schoolchild over the interval curtains. They were unsettling but with impact, the monochrome set and costumes blended into the British Pathe newsreels of the war. Ingo Krügler’s costumes giving us a shorthand into the complexities of Spanish society.

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Tamara Wilson Leonora’s was lovely, all soft purity and light uplifting voices and she charmed me, some more maturity to her voice will make her a stunning performer but she was triumphant in this, her full radiant voice reaching across the space with a serious refulgence.  Her wretched end full of real sadness, regret and poignancy. I was moved. Anthony Michaels-Moore as Carlo was convincing and his voice full on this first night, filling the auditorium with vengeful fury and the mix of anger and confusion wrapped up in the complexities of honour and war as he slowly lost his mind, this darkness suited his voice well. Gwyn Hughes Jones as Alvaro was superb, his voice full, dramatic and he covered the emotional range demanded from the music. Andrew Shore’s Melitone was wicked and wretched and incompetent, hiding his hatred in a pious hypocrisy and was as wonderful in voice and acting as ever, I adore Shores every performance. The ENO Chorus, on fullbeam form this evening were magnificent; menacing, judgmental, whispering, hopeful, beseeching and despairing, they were outstanding and I was transfixed when ever they were all on stage.

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Mark Wigglesworth’s conducting was polished with a slight super sheen on occasion, with a return the original overture from Verdi he pulled an astonishingly refined performance from the orchestra, there were moments where the music sent me off to that lovely place where everything is suspended in a perfect moment of wonder. My companion enjoyed his first Verdi opera and enjoyed the set and lighting a lot. I’m not a keen fan of Verdi, but shutting my eyes and letting the music seduce me away from the horror was a key part of my enjoyment of this evenings production.

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While not perfect this new ENO production is an exciting, challenging and interesting night out with quality singing and a sumptuous orchestral score, director Bieito has done bloody well to get so much out of this difficult Verdi epic.

7 performances remaining

Until December 4

Tickets available from £12. There are now at least 500 tickets at every performance at £20 or under. Find the right offer for you.

For more info or to book tickets, click here:

English National Opera

London Coliseum

St Martins Lane

3hr 35mins including two intervals

Sung in English, with surtitles projected above the stage

 

 

 

 

City Council supports second runway at Gatwick

 

Brighton & Hove City Council has expressed strong support for a second runway at Gatwick.

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This was agreed and passed through a Notice of Motion at the Economic, Development and Culture committee today, Thursday November 12, proposed by the Labour and Cooperative Group and agreed by the Conservatives.

The committee resolved for the CEO of Brighton & Hove City Council to write to the Prime Minister to offer the council’s support for expansion at Gatwick.

Cllr Warren Morgan
Cllr Warren Morgan

Cllr Warren Morgan, leader of Brighton & Hove City Council said: “We are very pleased to back the expansion of Gatwick Airport. The potential benefits of a second runway for the city, local businesses and residents are enormous in terms of jobs, apprenticeships and economic growth.

“It would mean greater investment in the London to Brighton rail line, and put Greater Brighton in a much stronger place to win more devolved powers from Westminster. We urge the Prime Minister to choose Gatwick and give our economy a huge boost.”

Stewart Wingate
Stewart Wingate

Stewart Wingate, Gatwick CEO, said: “We are delighted that Brighton & Hove City Council is supporting Gatwick’s case for expansion.

“The already strong ties between us would only be enhanced with a second runway as it would deliver a huge boost to the local economy and deliver new jobs, apprenticeships and opportunities for local businesses.

“Brighton & Hove is well-connected to Gatwick by both road and rail and more than 1000 airport staff live in the area. This number would be more than doubled if we expanded and new opportunities for improving links with markets across the globe would open up, including driving further demand for the city’s crucial tourism industry.

“I look forward to a Government decision in favour of Gatwick so Brighton can fully realise the benefits of airport expansion.”

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Guy Lloyd to host Martlets music quiz at cricket ground

Back by popular demand – Music Quiz will be hosted by Juice FM presenter Guy Lloyd.

Guy Lloyd
Guy Lloyd

Test your musical knowledge on Friday, November 27 with a quiz covering everything from pop to classical and one-hit wonders to top-selling albums. If you know your Presley from your Costello and your Take That from your 1D, then this is the night for you, and it’s all in aid of local charity, the Martlets Hospice.

Guy, Juice FM’s Drive presenter, said: “As we all know, we are lucky to have a worthy institution such as the Martlets Hospice on our doorstep. A place of compassion and dignity.

“The Martlets exists through fundraising and donations so please join me for The Martlets Music Quiz, a night of great fun, great prizes and great knowledge. Come on down if you think you’re smart enough!”

All the money raised through the music quiz will go towards the Martlets work caring for adults living in and around Brighton & Hove who are affected by terminal illness. The Hove based charity receives less than a third of their funding from the government and must raise £11,000 a day to care for patients and their families.

Antonia Shepherd, Events Manager for the Martlets Hospice, said: “You don’t need to be a walking encyclopaedia of music to join in the quiz – it’s always a light-hearted event and we are delighted that Guy will again be hosting the event for us.”

The quiz will take place at the Sussex County Cricket Ground, on Eaton Road in Hove; teams of up to six are welcome; doors open at 6.45pm, and the quiz starts at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £18 per person which includes a hearty bangers and mash supper, and there will be a cash bar.


Event: Martlets Music Quiz

Where: Sussex County Cricket Ground, Eaton Road, Hove

When: Friday, November 27

Tickets: £18 per person

To purchase tickets online, click here:

Or telephone the events team on 01273 964 200 to purchase tickets over the telephone.

The Martlets

Proud gay twins come out as survivors of sexual abuse

Founders of a Devon-based social enterprise that supports lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or trans (LGBT+) people in rural areas, share news of the sexual abuse they both encountered as teenagers, during their TedxTotnes talk.

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During the honest talk, Mat said: “When we were both 13, we were sexually abused by strangers. A lot of people think we’ve gone through life supporting each other and being there for each other, which is largely true, but we didn’t know about each other’s abuse for 15 years…so we were isolated and alone in that experience.”

The talk, which was chosen by Tedx to be promoted to their 3 million YouTube subscribers, also sees the brothers reflect on their experiences of growing up gay in a rural area, the bullying they faced and what inspired them to set up Proud2Be over four years ago.

Jon and Mat left the audience with a final message, saying: “No matter who you are, or how you identify, or what you have been told before, or however isolated, ashamed and invisible you feel, you too can be proud to be.”

Proud2Be Project, recently named as the UK’s top 100 ‘Awesome Networks’, was launched in June 2011, when the brothers recorded a short video where they explained how they are both “proud to be gay”.

Since then a number of high profile LGBT+ figures have contributed to the Proud2Be campaign including Stephen Fry who in his own words “is happy to be counted as a proud supporter of Proud2Be at every turn”. Stephen has also shown his support ‘tweeting’ about the project on several occasions to his 11.6 million twitter followers.

Along with endorsements from many leading LGBT+ public figures Proud2Be have also named award-winning human rights activist Aderonke Apata, international bestselling author Andrew Solomon, human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell and retired political trans activist Christine Burns MBE, as its patrons.

To view the video, click here:

For more information about Proud2Be, click here:

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Bar Revenge to auction off staff at World AIDS Day fundraiser

Bar Revenge will stage their annual fundraiser for World AIDS Day on Sunday, November 29 from 7pm.

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Highlight will be a staff auction and raffle to raise funds for Terrence Higgins Trust (THT).

Last years event raised more than £2,000 and organisers hope to top that target this year, so take your wallet along and bid to buy your favourite member of staff! If you make the winning bid, you get a champagne reception upstairs in the bar with your staff member later that night!

There will be live music, drag queens, DJs and a raffle with some amazing prizes including:

♦ VIP area for 10 people + bottle of bubbly at Club Revenge

♦ A goody bag courtesy of Gilded Cage Tattoo Studio

♦ Prizes from Prowler Brighton

♦ Overnight stay, dinner and breakfast at Hotel Du Vin

♦ Champagne afternoon tea for two at Hilton Metropole Brighton

♦ 2 x VIP tickets to Shakedown Festival

♦ £50 bar spend at Bar Revenge

♦ 4 Tickets to NYE at Club Revenge

♦ Many more prizes TBA!


Event: World AIDS Day Fundraiser

Where: Bar Revenge, 5-7 Marine Parade, Brighton BN2 1TA

When: Sunday, November 29

Time: 7pm

PREVIEW: Myanmar gay marriage documentary gets festival premiere

Irrawaddy Mon Amour, a documentary about a forbidden gay marriage in Myanmar, has its world premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) this month.

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Irrawaddy Mon Amour has been selected for the mid-length competition of IDFA, the most important documentary festival in Europe.

The festival has just announced its program and the film will have its world premiere on November 21.

Made by three Italian directors, Nicola Grignani, Valeria Testagrossa and Andrea Zambelli, the film follows the story of a young homosexual couple in Myanmar that – helped by LGBT activists, Buddhist monks and village housewives – tries to celebrate love, against the fear of military repression.

Myanmar has been in the spotlight in the past days following the victory of Aung San Suu Kyi at the first free elections since 1990. Before this important moment, a military junta ruled the country for almost 50 years, repressing democracy and civil rights. Myanmar has a law that prohibits homosexual acts, section 377 of the criminal code. After the end of British rule in the 1960s, the law has been kept in existence and enforced by the military authority and punishment includes incarceration for a minimum of 10 years.

The directors have launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo that aims to collect 10.000 Euros, essential to cover the post-production costs and bring the film to IDFA and other film festivals including Torino Film Festival.

The directors – who already worked together on the short documentary Striplife (2013) filmed in the Gaza Strip, CPH:DOX nominee and Torino Film Festival winner – went to Kyauk Myaung, a little village on the Irrawaddy river, in the heart of Myanmar, where they were stunned to find a strong LGBT presence in such a small community.

“The supportive and open-minded atmosphere of the people of the village allowed a lot of young people to come out. We thought it was important to make a film about choice: the choice of not giving up fundamental human and civil rights, such as freely celebrating one’s love.”

The crowdfunding campaign offers the possibility for organisations and cinemas to pre-buy the film screening, with the participation of the three directors.

For more information about the crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, click here:

 

 

November is mouth cancer month

Victor’s story – My battle with mouth cancer.

Mouth Cancer Month

Victor, from Brighton, was diagnosed with mouth cancer on December 23rd 2014. Accepting of the links with smoking and alcohol he was shocked to find that the rise in this deadly disease is now thought to be associated with the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), markers for HP16 were found in his microbiology report.

HPV affects up to 80% of the adult population, Victor presented with all three risk factors.

He is using his experience to raise awareness of one of the few cancers in which we are seeing an alarming increase.

Victor Middleton has the prodigious honour of being one of Brighton’s oldest post war babies, born VE day 1945 amongst jubilant celebrations. A Brightonian through and through, his battle with cancer started with a simple car trip over the South Downs on a sunny weekend morning. To help raise awareness of mouth cancer Victor had decided to share the journey he took in his fight against mouth cancer.

Mouth Cancer Action Month

Here, in his own words, is Victor’s story.

Through my story I want to share with you one simple message, mouth cancer can affect anyone. Although largely having a public perception of being caused by smoking and drinking, it is also linked to the human papillomavirus or HPV.

HPV is a virus which is so common within sexually active people that 50 to 80% will contract it in their lifetime. It is a virus which will lay dormant in most people, but one which can kill indiscriminately.

I want to start by telling you that I am a fit man, I go to spinning classes five times a week and keep myself active whenever I can. One day on a car journey up and down the South Downs I was aware of pain in the back of my mouth which occurred with altitude changes. I knew something was wrong.

Later that day, I was helping my son to pressure wash his drains and jokingly said to him, as all the dirty water flew around, if I got an infection it would be his fault.  Little did I know what was in store for me over the coming months.

A few weeks later, in December, I awoke with a sore throat and swollen glands so visited the doctor expecting the regular course of antibiotics. After his examination I was immediately referred to the Ear, Nose and Throat department at the Royal Sussex County Hospital with an appointment a few days later, I knew something was seriously wrong.

I remember reading at the time the story of a young woman who had recently lost her battle with tongue cancer, it struck a chord with me and I went to the specialist with more fear than I could imagine. Losing my tongue was my worst fear, I love to talk and suddenly it dawned upon me that so many things we all may take for granted could potentially be taken away from me with what was to come.

The specialist confirmed my doctor’s fears a couple of days before Christmas; he found a lump at the base of my tongue. I asked if it was cancer, he said it was. I asked if it was life threatening, he said it was unless I received treatment.

It’s amazing what effect one word can have on you, as soon as the ‘C’ word was mentioned my world melted, nothing had prepared me for that and in an instance my life had become a battle to survive.

One thing which I discovered along the way was that very little was known about the specifics of HPV. By chance one day I saw Factor 16 on my medical notes I asked my doctor if the virus was sexually transmitted and had it caused my cancer.

He told me it was more to do with smoking and drinking but little was known on the link to the HPV virus. Much of the knowledge which I collected about HPV was through my own research and I knew this was a likely contributory cause. At this point I knew that people needed to know more to enable them to be more forthcoming when it came to HPV and its relationship with mouth cancer.

I went into my treatment soon after with many things in my mind, the most important goal which I set myself was that I had to stay alive to see my son reach 60. The primary cancer was confirmed as in my right tonsil, something which I had had problems with throughout my life, and soon after I had a tonsillectomy.

The treatment was long and hard, but what did I expect.  My doctor had warned me that nobody with cancer gets a “free ride” and he was very right. I agreed to follow a proposed course of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and a few days later we began.

My treatment consisted of six doses of chemotherapy, which I received every Monday morning, in tandem with thirty doses of radiotherapy, five doses a week for six weeks.

The worse part of the treatment was radiotherapy, for which I had to wear a plastic face mask which fitted tightly over my head and fixed me to the bed of the radiotherapy machine to ensure the dose of radiation was accurate to 1mm. On one occasion I forgot to prepare myself for the mask and found myself gasping for air inside the machine, thankfully the nurse could see my panic and it was soon sorted, but this was another reminder that I could not take this journey lightly.

As I was sat in the oncology room with a needle in my arm receiving my chemo, I took inspiration from the people I saw around me, especially the breast cancer survivors. I thought to myself that if they could beat cancer then so could I, that thought gave me real strength.

I carried on with my normal life as per doctor’s orders, even continuing my spinning classes for two weeks. The sickness from the chemo then meant I was unable to use the gym. I was offered steroids but refused due to adverse side effects and my appetite disappeared. I lived on liquid supplements for eight weeks.

During this time I lost 12 kilograms and had to use artificial saliva spray to compensate for the dry mouth caused by the loss of my lower salivary glands. My taste buds were also partially destroyed meaning I derived no pleasure from food as it had very little taste and it was often painful to eat at all.

After intervention from my oncologist to stop the rapid decline in weight, I was soon on the road to recovery and started to eat solid food and to drink the required amount for my recovery.

Eight weeks after my treatment had ended I was seen by my oncology team who told me I was recovering at a very healthy rate.  Appointments were made for an MRI scan to assess the results of the treatment and I soon found myself in the hospital again waiting for what could be the most defining point of my life.

After the consultant inspected the base of my tongue I was pronounced cured. My relief was palpable. For seven months my world has been a continuing daily battle against cancer and with just a few words that was all ended, little did I know that there were still major battles to be faced, not least with myself.

Within 24 hours I was overcome with feelings of depression and anxiety. Who would have thought that winning my fight with cancer which consumed me for such a long time would leave me feeling without purpose.

I decided to give myself a new drive and from that moment I have used my experience to increase awareness of HPV and its relationship with mouth cancer.

Surviving mouth cancer has given me a new outlook on life. I am able to look back on my experience as a positive phenomenon – one which I have learnt from and can use to educate people about a mouth cancer and its causes,  which can include HPV, of which awareness remains frighteningly low.

When I talk to my friends or family about my cancer there is a very consistent pattern, which I believe is repeated regularly across the country, a need to explain it to them.

The questions; what is mouth cancer, how is it caused, what is HPV, do I have HPV, how is it transmitted, did you give me it, can I be vaccinated against it? An ex-girlfriend even asked me if I could have given it to her, I responded with the truth; yes you probably have it, I may have given it to you but you may have given it to me, there is no way of knowing. Even kissing carries a potential risk of spreading the virus.

All of these questions have one common theme; there is a lack of common knowledge about a subject which in fact everyone should have in order for changes to be made and lives to be saved.

The biggest change that needs to happen relates to the current HPV vaccination programme. As things stand, the vaccination is only given to young girls aged 12 and 13 for protection against cervical cancer but this must be extended to boys too, before they become sexually active.

A gender-neutral vaccination programme is the only chance we have of fighting mouth cancer by eliminating HPV.  My oncologist has even got his two sons privately vaccinated as a result of his own concerns.

A drive across the South Downs may have saved my life, but I am one of the lucky ones, I survived but every year thousands of people don’t. We need to take the luck factor out of it and I want everyone to use my story to change the course of mouth cancer in the future.

Mouth cancer action month, organised by the British Dental Health Foundation, runs throughout November and aims to raise awareness of mouth cancer and make a difference by saving thousands of lives through early detection and prevention. They are passionate and committed to increasing awareness of the disease and reducing the number of lives lost to it every year.

To learn more about mouth cancer, click here:

 

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