Seagull Recommends 02/12

Hello and welcome back to Seagull Recommends! It's finally December! Are you as excited as Team Seagull which has already decorated for Christmas?!

This week we've got panto, poverty action, Plant Room coffee, The Pond, and other things that don't begin with P.

If you come across anything coming up in the city that you think we should know about, let us know!

🎶Gigs: We'll be honest, December is not the hot month for gigging. There's still some good stuff in the next week though: psychedelic harmonisers Mandrake Handshake are at Chalk on Wednesday: they're very fun, very funky, and we expect the gig to be an excellent time (tickets); and indie pop/rock/general genre-defying trio Wild Horse will be at South Lanes Studios on Thursday (tickets).

🤣Pantomime: Ian McKellen is coming to Brighton (oh no he isn't!)! No, he really is: for beloved pantomime Mother Goose, opening tomorrow at the Theatre Royal and running until next Sunday (11th). There are very, very few tickets, so you're going to want to hustle (tickets). He's behind you!

🚩Politics: Tomorrow is Fuel Poverty Awareness Day. In a year that the average energy bill has doubled, more than two million additional people have fallen into fuel poverty and hundreds of thousands have been forcibly switched onto pre-payment meters. On Saturday, the Warm This Winter coalition, to which Fuel Poverty Action is affiliated, is holding a national day of action. For Brighton, the assembly point is Clarence Square Garden at 10:30am. Solidarity!

☕️Coffee: The Plant Room in Brighton Square is full of plants and was, unsurprisingly, the first place our editor had coffee in Brighton. Very good vegan baked goods too!

🍱Dinner: Freeloada, based at the East Street Tap (we don't need to do our standard "on x street" format for this, it's called the East Street Tap, you work it out), do excellent loaded fries (we're particular fans of the katsu ones), as well as popcorn Chick'n and barbecue corn.

🍻Pint: The Pond in Gloucester Road does great cocktails, lots of good craft beer and also serves up delicious Taiwanese street food from Baby Bao.