Call us now

Day: August 22, 2016

Get baking to beat bowel cancer

Posted on by Gary Hart

Beating Bowel Cancer looks for budding bakers in West Sussex to help beat the UK’s second biggest cancer killer.

WEB.600The charity want volunteers to whip up cakes or biscuits for a bake sale fundraiser at work, home, social club or sports club. The challenge is taking place anytime over the summer.

Beating Bowel Cancer aims to raise £10,000 towards its Hidden Heartache appeal, so they can support more patients and families. The money could cover the cost of the charity’s nurse help line for three months, which could support over 600 bowel cancer patients, families and friends.

Each year in the UK more than 41,000 people are diagnosed with bowel cancer and around 16,000 people die of the disease. But despite such alarming statistics, the good news is that bowel cancer can be successfully treated in over 90 per cent of cases if caught early.

Sarah Webster Community Fundraiser for the South East, says:  “Let’s make a real difference to people beating Bowel Cancer”

Supporters can get started with the Bake It 2 Beat It Challenge by contacting the charity for a fundraising pack which includes exclusive Beating Bowel Cancer cake toppers. at

To download the fundraising pack, click here:

If you’d like to support the Bake it 2 Beat It Challenge, click here:

contact Sarah Webster on 07780 000996 or email sarah.webster@beatingbowelcancer.org

For more information about bowel cancer, click here:

To call the charity’s Helpline nurses, telephone: 020 8973 0011 or email: 

 

PREVIEW: Shopping and F***ing @ Lyric Hammersmith

Posted on by Contributor

“It’s summer. I’m in a supermarket. It’s hot and I’m sweaty. Damp. And I’m watching this couple shopping. I’m watching you. And you’re both smiling. You see me and you know sort of straight away that I’m going to have you.”

WEB.600

Twenty years since its explosive premiere, Olivier Award-winning director Sean Holmes brings Mark Ravenhill’s provocative first play, Shopping and F***ing back to the stage.

With a raw mixture of black humour and bleak philosophy, the play follows three disconnected young adults whose lives have been reduced to a series of transactions in an emotionally shrink wrapped world. A place where Shopping is sexy and Fucking is a job.

“An omen of the new century” ……….(Evening Standard), Ravenhill’s play is a prophetic vision of our twenty-first century world. Widely regarded as one of the most influential pieces of contemporary British theatre this rarely staged play is a must see.

The Lyric’s main house will be transformed for this production with part of the audience seated on the stage, creating a bold intimate experience within their Victorian auditorium.

All stalls and onstage stalls seats will be £25.

Mark Ravenhill said: “I’ve enjoyed a long and fulfilling association with the Lyric – Faust Is Dead (1997), Handbag (1998), Pool (2005), Show 6 (2015) for the Lyric’s Secret Theatre – and so it’s very exciting that they are reviving my first play Shopping and Fucking, twenty years after it premiered. I’m looking forward to seeing what a new generation of theatre audiences make of the play.”

Event: Shopping and F***ing is a Lyric Hammersmith production by Mark Ravenhill: Directed by Sean Holmes

Where: Lyric Theatre, Kings Mall Shopping Centre, King St, Lyric Square, London W6 0QL

When: Friday October 7 – Saturday, November 5

Time: Evenings 7.30pm matinees 1.30 and 2.30pm

Cost: £15, £20, £30 and £35: £15 previews: £15 midweek matinees

For more information, click here

Manchester Pride reveals full line-up for The Big Weekend, 2016

Posted on by Gary Hart

Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Tulisa added to Manchester Pride main stage line-up.

Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Headliners Fleur East, Katy B, Heather Small and Will Young will be joined by special guests Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Tulisa on the bill at Manchester Pride’s The Big Weekend on August bank holiday.

In January 2014, Sophie Ellis-Bextor – released Wanderlust, an album full of baroque chamber pop and experimental flirtations with folk. The sudden shift away from the disco and dance of old was seen as risky by many, including Ellis-Bextor herself. She needn’t have worried; it subsequently crashed into the UK top 5, spent three weeks inside the top 10 and went Gold. Its success – both commercially and creatively – has been a huge influence on its follow-up, the equally gorgeous, surprising and engaging Familia.

Tulisa
Tulisa

Hip-hop singer-songwriter, actress, and television personality Tulisa is best known as a member of N-Dubz. In 2011, she also became a judge on X Factor where she mentored the girl group Little Mix to victory.

Other acts appearing include Lucy Spraggan, Manchester based dance act K-Klass performing a live classics set, Britain’s Got Talent finalist Danny Beard, X Factor favourite Seann Miley Moore plus Anne-Marie, Imani Williams, Frankmusik, Jordan Gray, Eli Cripps and Damon Hess and Emily Cunliffe (Kym Marsh’s daughter).

The Gaydio Dance Arena will host an equally impressive DJ line-up including DJ Judge Jules, newly announced New York based Fashion Forward DJ Miss Honey Dijon,  San Francisco DJ crew Honey Soundsystem, David Dunne, DJ Paulette, Seamus Haji, Homoelectric stalwart, Jamie Bull, Kriss Herbert and Manchester favourites, Neil Diablo and Sian Bennett.

Heather Peace will host the popular ‘Heather Peace Presents’ Boutique Stage line-up in Sackville Gardens featurin Magpies, Leslie Finlay, Sophia B, Me and Deboe, Kiera Lawler, Amity, Jade Ellis and Heather herself from 3pm on Saturday August 27.

Other acts performing in Sackville Gardens across the weekend will include the Man Bears, Misty Chance and the Shane Ritchie Jnr Band.

Mark Fletcher, Chief Executive for Manchester Pride, said: “It’s great to finally reveal our full line-up. Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Tulisa are brilliant additions, thanks to G-A-Y. They’ll be in good company with Fleur East, Katy B, Heather Small and Judge Jules, making this one of the most credible and diverse line ups we’ve ever seen at The Big Weekend, as they perform alongside LGBT icons including MNEK, Shura and Will Young….Bring it on!”

Manchester Pride Festival is a four-day event celebrating LGBT life and takes place in August. The Big Weekend runs from Friday, August 26 to Monday, August 29 with the Parade on Saturday August 27.

The Big Weekend tickets are on sale now, priced at £25 for weekend tickets.

Day, family and children’s tickets are also available.

Tickets are exchanged for Pledge Bands at the festival providing guests with access to the event, including the Main Arena, Sackville Gardens, the Gaydio Dance Arena and the Expo and help Manchester Pride raise funds for LGBT and HIV causes in Greater Manchester.

For more information on The Big Weekend, click here:

Legends top Brighton Pride’s list of fundraising supporters

Posted on by Graham Robson

Legends contributions to Brighton Pride 2016 in fundraising and sponsorship total almost £10,000.

Reece Robert (Legends Manager), Tony Chapman and Stephen Richards
Reece Robert (Legends Manager), Tony Chapman (Legends owner) and Stephen Richards

Stephen Richards aka Lola Lasagne, presents Tony Chapman the owner of Legends with a certificate from the Rainbow Fund to mark the £3,526.74 raised in buckets at the annual Pride Cabaret Fundraising Day on Sunday August 7.

Tony also made a further personal donation of £1,000 on top of that to the Rainbow Fund to distribute to LGBT and HIV organisations through their independent grants programme.

Once against this year, Legends sponsored the cabaret tent, one of the most popular attractions on Preston Park, and with their contribution toward the Pride Village Party brought the total commitment from Legends in 2016 to £10,026.74.

Stephen Richards said: “I am blown away by the amount raised on the day through the generosity of all those who came into Legends. It highlights the community spirit which is essential at Pride. I would like to thank all the artistes who donated their time and talent, plus Justin Zilli, Warren Scott and Peter Castle who worked all day on production.”

Artists donating their time to the Rainbow Fund included: Lola Lasagne, Miss Jason, Vicky Vivacious, Mrs Moore, Gabriella Parrish, Mary Mac, Sally Vate, Stephanie Von Klitz, Son Ofa Tutu, Baga Chipz, Dr Beverley Ballcrusher, Lucinda Lashes, Cassidy Connors, Maisie Trollette, Rose Garden, Martha D’Arthur, Davina Sparkle, Kara Van Park and Dave Lynn.

Through their independent grants panel, The Rainbow Fund give grants to LGBT/HIV organisations who deliver effective services to LGBT people in the city.

WEB.300Chris Gull, Chair of the Rainbow Fund, said: “Thank you to everyone who put money into the Rainbow Fund buckets, to the artists who appeared and especially to Tony Chapman for his generous personal donation. I will ensure that we get best value for the community when we select which organisations get grants at the September grants round.”

BOOK REVIEW: A Bunch of lies by Lucy Rutherford

Posted on by Eric Page

41Dw0f1dGPL

Based in Brighton & Hove the plot of  A Bunch of Lies follows a woman’s life unravelling as she searches for meaning following the hit and run death of her eight year- old daughter which slowly leads to the collapse of everything she thought she knew. After finding her daughter’s diary, a web of interconnection and inter dependency is exposed that enforces silence from anyone who might know.

This is a warts and all intro of the city, with plenty of local gay colour, subculture high jinks and police action thrown in, although the police procedures are not the point here though, this is no whodunit, or why dunnit, it’s a more complex dissection of deception and the power of self-denial in relationships, and the central core of a women in love with a man she can’t see is gay.

Rutherford has written a tightly plotted book with a surge of narrative tension that washes all before it, with enough turns and sometimes comedic twists to fully engage and a keen eye for clinical medical detail this is a good dark read and rather funny in a shadowy way. On occasion the dialogue can plod but this is a small criticism of what is essentially a good book which manages to take in just about every minority community in the city with a healthy intersectional nod at the way they interact and divide in times of crisis.

Rutherford knows the city well, geographically and psychologically, and has applied this love of sinister Sussex by the Sea to weave a slyly compelling narrative of unravelled lives.

Out Now £7.99

For more information or to buy the book, click here:

 

Latest News

International News Streets flooded with colour for Tokyo Pride 2024
Community News New survey published for Lesbian Visibility Week finds lesbian, bi and queer women – as well as trans people – often feel unsafe in their day to day lives
Arts Komedia to celebrate 30th birthday in May
Community News Brighton & Hove Rainbow Run to return for third fabulous year in August
X