Culture

Pocket Oxford almost brought the Lamb House marquee down with their hilarious version of Hamlet, for children of all ages. Move aside Benedict Cumberbatch, your Barbican performance has been eclipsed

This week's featured movie showing at Rye Kino is 'Everest' inspired by the incredible events surrounding an attempt to reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain. Everest documents the awe-inspiring journey of two different expeditions challenged beyond their limits by one of the fiercest snowstorms ever encountered by mankind. Read on for trailers to this and other movies showing in Rye

"Downton Abbey" and its predecessor "Upstairs Downstairs", may give TV versions of life in stately homes, but was it really like that ? An author has been exploring the facts, rather than the fiction

"Mud, mud, glorious mud" seems an unlikely finale for an Arts Festival music event - but when you stage a special evening based on the wit and wisdom of some of Britain's greatest musical humorists what can you expect ?

Two very different young pianists featured on the same day at St Mary's with Maya Irgalina at lunchtime delivering an all Chopin programme and Alexander Panfilov powering away in the evening with Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an exhibition". Alexander Stiller compares two very different programmes and two very different pianists

Rye's Arts Festival closes this weekend with the man who has allegedly killed off EF Benson's heroines Mapp and Lucia and another whose home was Rye and was a collaborator of Shakespeare's. Andy Stuart provides the details

Rye Bookshop on the High Street will welcome author...

Local artist Richard Adams threw open his home in...

As the Rye Arts Festival gets close to its final weekend, our gossip column picks up bits and pieces which may have passed you by - such as the Kings on the fringe, a flying visit from the Irish and some historic "blowers", and a director chatting his way through his film. But it will all be over soon, and some of the organisers will be taking a swift holiday

Rye Art Gallery sponsored the Arts Festival talk "A Crisis of Brilliance" about a book describing the influence on five famous artists (including Paul Nash who lived locally) of friendships made young and of their tempestuous artistic and personal lives afterwards

The first of four piano concerts in St Mary's showed true artistry, reports reviewer Alexander Stiller. However keeping the piano in tune proved a challenge

Opera on a train ? Mozart never had that in mind surely ? Well, prepare to be surprised as Euphonia and director Alisdair Kitchen - with quite a lot of help from our Studio School with sets, costume and backstage - perform not just once, but twice, and Rye Arts Festival raises its sights once again to new standards