Picturing Stories – Hove Museum & Art Gallery

Picturing Stories is a family-friendly exhibition of narrative paintings from Brighton & Hove Museums’ Fine Art collection that explores relationships between words and images.  Using captivating oil paintings, this exhibition explores the variety of ways in which visual images can illustrate and inspire storytelling.  Designed to appeal to families, Picturing Stories is the ideal way to introduce children of all ages to a paintings exhibition.

Creative workshops and drop-in storytelling sessions for children form part of the exhibition.

Hove Museum & Art Gallery • www.brighton-hove-rpml.org.uk

A Dark Day in Paradise – The Royal Pavilion

An installation by Clare Twomey for Museumaker

Thousands of black ceramic butterflies have been installed in the Royal Pavilion by artist Clare Twomey. The butterflies swarm in the Banqueting Room, the Great Kitchen and the Entrance Hall, and flutter darkly throughout the ground floor of the palace.  The work is a response to the excesses of the building, with the butterflies symbolising the transience of life and the vanity of earthly things.  They are both beautiful and menacing, an invitation for visitors to reflect on the history of the building and to draw contemporary parallels.

Clare Twomey is a British ceramicist/artist who works with clay in large-scale installations, sculpture and site-specific works.  She has exhibited at Tate, Victoria & Albert Museum, Crafts Council and the Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, Japan.

The Royal Pavilion  • www.brighton-hove-rpml.org.uk/RoyalPavilion

Admission prices
Adult (16 years and over) £9.50
Accompanying child (15 years and below) £5.40
Concession £7.50
Brighton & Hove resident £4.75 with proof of address

Inheritance at the Hop Gallery Lewes

Blithe Spirit at the Theatre Royal Brighton

Starring Alison Steadman, Robert Bathurst & Hermione Norris
By Noel Coward
Directed by Thea Sharrock

‘A classic of high English comedy…addictively entertaining’ Daily Telegraph

Blithe Spirit opened in 1941 when it played for over 2,000 performances and hugely raised wartime spirits. It has been one of the world’s favourite comedies ever since. Its razor-sharp wit and wonderful characters have continued to raise spirits both in the audience and on stage.

Novelist Charles Condomine and his second wife Ruth are literally haunted by a past relationship when an eccentric medium manages to conjure up the ghost of Charles’s neurotic first wife, Elvira, at a seance.

They have assumed the preposterous Madame Arcati is a fraud who will simply entertain their dinner guests with a little chicanery and supply Charles with material for his forthcoming novel. But when Elvira appears, visible only to Charles, and determined to sabotage his current marriage, life – and the afterlife – begin to get complicated.

Alison Steadman plays the improbable clairvoyant, one of theatre’s most hilarious comic creations. Alison Steadman is one of our best-loved and most prolific actresses who recently enjoyed a West End run in Alan Bennett‘s Enjoy. Also on stage she created the role of the monstrous Beverly in Mike Leigh‘s Abigail’s Party and starred in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, for which she won an Olivier Award. Her films include Shirley Valentine and Mike Leigh‘s Life Is Sweet and Topsy Turvy. Television work includes Fat Friends, Selling Hitler, The Singing Detective, Pride and Prejudice and Gavin & Stacey.

Thea Sharrock is an award-winning director who has previously worked with Daniel Radcliffe, Keira Knightley and Damian Lewis in the West End. Her production of Rattigan’s After the Dance is currently running at the National Theatre.

‘A beautifully structured comedy’ Times

‘Coward is pure entertainment’ Daily Mail

http://ambassadortickets.com/1996/664/Brighton/Theatre-Royal-Brighton/Blithe-Spirit

Theatre Royal, New Road, Brighton

Crane Kalman Brighton: Christmas Exhibition 2010

Crane Kalman Brighton presents its an annual selection of work for the Christmas 2010 Exhibition. The mixed show features a diverse range of work from the contemporary to the classic, including first view of animal photographer Tim Flach’s new project, ‘Dogs: Gods’ and new work from up-and-coming Crane Kalman regular, Samuel Hicks.

The exhibition will also feature classics such as a series of David Steen’s iconic portraits of some of the greatest artists, writers and performers of the 60s and 70s to some iconic portraits of screen legend, Steve McQueen, recently released in a new book from McQueen’s widow, Barbara, and classic b/w images from the Getty Images Archive Collection.

38 Kensington Gardens, North Laine, Brighton, BN1 4AL • 01273 697096 • www.cranekalmanbrighton.com

Opening Hours:
Mon – Sat: 10am-6pm
Sun: 11am-5pm

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