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Victoria Nangle explains that a degree of nonchalance when performing can be a useful tool in stand-up

The very best way, the ultimate as far as I’m concerned, but also the most dangerous and random way of performing a good show is not to care too much. By this I don’t mean to saunter on to stage like a disillusioned teenager staring at your trainers and muttering your words. This may work for some but that’s more of a style choice than I’m prepared to make. Energy begets energy and if you fill the place up with energy my experience has said that you’re less likely to get unwarranted audience participation if the place feels like it already has enough of the stuff.

“The more fun you have with it the more everyone else seems to enjoy it too”

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Do you want to record and produce a 45-minute music set for this year’s St James’s Street Party?

Last year’s St James’s Street Party, after Brighton Pride and festival was the most successful to date; this year the organisers are looking to make the two-day event just as professional and well-planned as the year before.

The Pride weekend is one of the most important dates in the city’s calendar and The Village Street Party on and around St James’s Street, on the Pride Saturday and Sunday is one of the largest Street Parties in Sussex.

Over the weekend the organisers are offering six local DJs the chance to record and produce a 45-minute set at Juice FM. The set will be played over the Saturday and Sunday of Pride weekend, Live on Juice FM and in and around the Village Street Party.

Email Ben Davie at: ben@amsterdam.uk.com for info.

Linda Holm, Superintendent Registrar of Brighton Register Office, talks to Paul Disney about the happy business of love

Describe yourself?
I have worked for the Registration Service for 23 years. I love dealing with people and consider my role an honour and a privilege. Nothing gives me more pleasure than seeing couples commit to each other, whether they be gay or straight. It’s a special occasion.

Why Brighton and Hove?
I was working for Cambridge Register Office for 14 years but had reached a point where my career couldn’t progress further. I had alwayswanted to live by the sea; so when a colleague at Southampton Register Office informed me a position had come up in Brighton and Hove, I immediately applied for it. So here I am, enjoying every minute of it!

So what’s so cool about your job here?
Brighton and Hove is a great cosmopolitan city and the council have been really pro-active in promoting and supporting the registration service in launching civil partnerships and other services. I have been given much automony to develop and improve all aspects of the registration service here, and it is working out very well.

Has Civil Partnerships changed society, in relation to the LGBT communities here? Read the rest of this article »

There will soon be a celebration of the life and work of Duncan Grant at Charleston with seven new paintings. This exhibition brings together a small number of exceptional paintings from public and private collections, offering a rare opportunity to reconsider Grant’s contribution to 21st century British art and his significance within the Bloomsbury circle, which also included E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf and John Maynard Keynes, with its ranks of artists, writers and thinkers.

The paintings on show include ‘Bathers by the Pond’ which was actually painted at Charleston, the second home to the Bloomsbury set and their friends; a portrait of David Garnett, painted when the two men were lovers; and a portrait of Vanessa Bell (sister of Virginia Woolf) made in the 30s.

The paintings will hang alongside the permanent collection at Charleston, Duncan Grant’s Sussex home from 1916 until his death in 1978.

Duncan Grant, Charleston, Firle near. Lewes. Tel: 01323 811265
Visit: www.charleston.org.uk