Seagull Recommends 16/12

Hello and welcome back to Seagull Recommends! This is going to be our last one until the New Year, to let our hard-working team take some well-deserved time off. So we'd better make it a good one!

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

🎶Gigs: Tonight at The Cowley Club is a Christmas Benefit gig for Ukraine. With music from Imposter, Plastics, Stone Hand, Complete Snake, Bodybag and Isolation,  all the profits will go to an initiative helping people by rebuilding their homes. Suggested donation is £8, cash only on the door. As requested by the venue, test before going and wear a mask while there.

🎄🎶Christmas concert: Nocturne is a monthly evening of live ambient and improvised music, classical, world, folk and experimental taking place TONIGHT in St Michaels All Angels Church. This months edition is their special annual Christmas concert featuring two up-and-coming bands, Samana and Pillow. It is a fundraiser event for Help Musicians who are pioneering support for musicians around the country in moments of crisis and opportunity. With seats set up in a circle around the band, they aim to make it the experience as immersive as possible and encourage people to move around and change their perspective. Expect there to be candles, incense, a bar, mulled wine and lovely vibes (tickets)!

🎭Theatre: European Arts Company is returning to the Royal Pavilion next Friday (23rd December) with the much loved A Christmas Carol, recreated by John O’Connor (Before We Die, Channel 4) (tickets).

🎥Film: There are so many Christmas films at Komedia and the Duke of York this month: It's A Wonderful Life, The Muppets Christmas Carol, Elf, Home Alone, Gremlins, Die Hard, Polar Express, and more. Our editor is going to see It's A Wonderful Life to celebrate her upcoming birthday, in fact!

🎄Christmas market: Need some last-minute Christmas gifts for your favourite vegan? Brighton Open Market is holding its first ever Christmas vegan market tomorrow, from 10am to 5pm. Head down and enjoy a brilliant range of plant-based bites and hot food, as well as a fantastic range of gifts, crafts, beauty and other treats!

🏮Burning the Clocks: Returning on December 21st, Burning the Clocks is a  community event created by Same Sky that brings the whole city together to mark the shortest day of the year. Local people make their own paper and willow lanterns, and after parading through the city, they pass them into a blazing bonfire on Brighton beach, as a token of the year’s end. This year it starts at around 6:30pm from the centre of the city near the Pavilion. The fireworks and effigy burning will commence around 7.30pm on Kemptown Beach. Lantern kits are available to purchase from HISBE Supermarket, The Booklovers Store in Jubilee Library, The Book Nook in Hove, Seed ‘n Sprout in Kemptown (cash only), and Paxton+Glew Gallery in Hanningtons Lane.

🦖Dinosaur: At the Theatre Royal after Christmas is Jurassic Live, a show which "[features] the UK'S ONLY flying Pterodactyl and only Parasaurolophus, Stegosaurus & Apatosaurus, the UK's BIGGEST Tyrannosaurus Rex and the UK'S most realistic Triceratops & Velociraptor and more!" How could you not want to go to that (tickets)?!

🪩NYE: Join The Hope and Ruin for its second NYE fancy dress ball: heroes and villains! Expect live performances from Holiday Ghosts, The Atom Jacks, The Damn Shebang and more, plus prizes for the best dressed people. The event will be free entry, with some very limited advance guaranteed entry before 9pm tickets for £5, which comes with a free shot on entry and a portion of the cost donated to Gig Buddies, a service that pairs up people with and without learning disabilities, that have similar interests, to be friends and to go to events together (tickets).

☕️Breakfast: Oeuf, on Third Avenue, is a beautiful space and has all kinds of delightful drinks (coffees from White Cloud and teas from Hoogly, both Brighton-based), plus all sorts of food including Frumpets (French toast battered crumpet).

☕️Coffee: The Roastery, opposite our beloved We Love Falafel where we once ate at for lunch every day for three weeks, has a lot of different blends of coffee as you may expect from its name. Ask them for a coffee based on your mood, and boy will they provide!

🍱Dinner: Lost Boys Land, on York Place, the first non-pub outing for the Lost Boys chicken gang, brings their incredible wings and sauces (whether meat, veggie or vegan) into dangerous proximity of Seagull HQ.

🍻Pint: The Battle Of Trafalgar, on Guildford Street, is a lovely snug little boozer with a lovely big garden just outside the station and regular Irish music sessions. If you've just got in from London, why not stick your head in and have a drink?

🍻Bonus pint: The Chimney House, on Upper Hamilton Road, has been delighting a friend of the Seagull (and her dogs) in Prestonville with its superb locally-sourced food, collection of ales and dog-friendliness.

🍸Christmas cocktails: Team Seagull had its Christmas party this week at Terre à Terre, and indulged in some, frankly, ridiculously delicious cocktails. Our favourites were The Paddington (pictured) that tasted like Calpol in the best way, and a chocolate orange martini that tasted like adult chocolate Nesquik.