Seagull Recommends 30/06

Hello and welcome back to Seagull Recommends! This week we've got a very important event at The Bevy, Brighton Comedy Festival, a queer creative writing workshop and much more.

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

🎶Music: Tomorrow, Will Joseph Cook is gracing Patterns with his presence! Very, very good indie pop earworm songs (tickets); On Wednesday, Brighton Dome is hosting Baton of Hope: An Evening of Hope. A special event from one of the UK’s biggest suicide prevention initiative, the evening will include performances from international beatbox star and 'one-person music festival' SK Shlomo, the Choir With No Name, young local AudioActive talents Phonetic and M.Kudo, award-winning poet Cecilia Knapp and local drag queen Cherry Bomb. This is an inclusive community event for anyone who has been affected by suicide, knows someone who has, or simply wants to connect with others to raise awareness of this important cause (tickets); On Thursday evening at the Attenborough Centre, Create Music are holding their summer showcase. Brighton & Hove Youth Big Band, Youth Wind Orchestra, and Jazz Band will be performing film scores, swing, blues, funk and soul. Tickets are only £8, concessions £6, and under 18's go free (tickets); on Saturday 8th July, the London Concert Orchestra and Brighton Festival Chorus will be performing music from Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Game of Thrones, and more at Brighton Dome (tickets).

🤣Comedy: Brighton Comedy Festival is back! From Wednesday to Sunday, some of the hottest names in comedy will be back in town, including Jack Dee, Sara Pascow, Nina Conti, Jen Brister, Fern Brady, Nish Kumar, David O'Doherty, and many more (tickets); tomorrow at Komedia is the wonderful John Robertson's The Dark Room, the world’s only live-action, text-based adventure game. The audience is trapped in a retro videogame with a sadistic end-of-level boss. Choose your options, survive the abuse simulator that is the improv comedy overlord John Robertson, and escape to win £1000—or, be brutally murdered by the rest of the crowd. It’s strange, insane and addictive – it’s a choose-your-own-adventure, so choose it (tickets)!

🪩Club night: Sharpen your black pencil eyeliner and break out the stripy gloves, because Komedia is hosting a 00's emo anthems night tonight. Expect My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, and all your old Bluetoothed favourite still on your iPod nano (tickets); if Tina Turner is more your jam, you're in luck—tonight at Ironworks is a live celebration of the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll (tickets).

🎭Theatre: Bowie Experience is at the Theatre Royal on Thursday for one night only! A tribute to David Bowie, it's two hours covering all the biggest hits of his career (tickets); this weekend at Brighton Open Air Theatre, Horrible Histories: Barmy Britain takes to the stage (tickets); also at Brighton Open Air Theatre, Thursday to Saturday is the National Production Company's performance of Macbeth, a full-scale production set in the murky Dark Ages, where love, politics and witchcraft collide (tickets).

✍Writing workshop: The Queery is running a queer creative writing workshop on Thursday, from 6pm to 8pm. This free workshop will give you a chance to try out different writing skills. There will be LGBTQIA+ writing prompts, literary based games, and a sounding board to bounce ideas off. There’s also going to be a quiet space if you want to get on with your own projects. The space is wheelchair friendly, and there is a disabled toilet—if any other accessibility needs are required, they ask that you let them know (free tickets).

🪽Origami: Ready to let your creativity take flight? Join Hove Museum of Creativity for their 'Origami Workshop: Paper Wings' on Thursday, 6 July, from 2-4pm. Discover the art of folding origami birds and use various types of recycled paper like packaging, sheet music, letters, and maps to create a unique flock of your own. In the end, they'll teach you how to assemble these paper creations into a beautiful hanging mobile. Don't miss out on this opportunity to create something truly special (tickets).

🍱Food: Since the demise of Really Happy Chicken (RIP),  The Bok Shop has been the best provider of vegan fried chicken alt in Brighton. We like the OG vegan tenders with chips, and if we wanted sauces, we'd get goku separately. For non-vegans, it's buffalo with blue cheese dip—'delicious', says friend of The Seagull Geeta.

🍻Drink: We love The Bevy, and it's especially worth going on Saturday at 2pm to their public meeting about the pub's future. It's the only community owned pub on an estate in the UK, and while they have a lot of support from their regulars, a combination of the cost of living, inflation, and grants drying up has left them running out of options. They're bringing people together to come up with new ideas to bring more people in and to cut costs. They're always looking for people to join the committee, or to get more involved: for example, entertainers for their free Thursday Family activities, promoting their Friday Seniors lunch club, and getting more disabled people involved with running their new monthly disability disco. If you're free on Saturday, or even just in general to pop in for a drink, we know they'd appreciate it.