Culture

Live and breathe one man's extraordinary and dramatic journey from escape to finally returning to his homeland to witness Robert Mugabe's betrayal

An Open Studios Day is being held at the School Creative Centre along with three talks as part of art's contribution to the Rye Arts Festival. Charlie Harkness reports.

Rye Art Gallery's latest exhibition "A Celebration of Light" opens on Saturday September 6 with works by Andrew Blyth and Andy Wood PRI RBA who now live in the Rye. For admirers of watercolours the exhibition promises to be one to savour with beautiful images of land, town and sea. And both artists will be working in the gallery at various times during the exhibition.

Almost 100 paintings by Winchelsea artists were displayed at the annual Bank Holiday art exhibition to raise funds for the town's Millennium Artefacts Fund.

Brickwall Music and Arts Society completed its forty-seventh season last month with a wonderfully enjoyable concert in the Great Space at St. Ronan's School, Hawkhurst.

Fairlight's hidden secrets include a bunker under the Fire Hills - and a dinosaur's footprints. Haydon Luke reveals these secrets in his new book about this pretty Sussex village

Now in its third year the jazz and blues festival has been embraced by locals, tourists and businesses alike and not even the wettest of bank holiday Mondays could dampen the enthusiasm of the musicians, performers and especially the audiences over the weekend. In the words of festival director Ian Bowden: "Rye was buzzing!"

This Friday the artist Djibo will be exhibiting his vibrant and exotic work to raise money for charity at one of Rye's loveliest shops providing an appropriately chic backdrop for Djibo's African based work. The proceeds will go to help children... and there's free fizz as well

The first auditions for Acting Up in Rye's christmas pantomime took place at the Queens Head on Wednesday August 20 and Old Mother Hubbard herself would have been proud. With a clutch of enthusiastic thespians and a witty script that leaves no entendre undoubled, the group enjoyed a most productive evening that will be repeated at the second audition night on Tuesday August 26

There will be theatrical mayhem by the Ypres tower at the weekend when the Rye Shakespeare Company takes to the green

Only One Direction to go - and that's to Rye's Tuesday Painters' annual exhibition at the St Mary's Centre in Lion Street, which has more than 250 paintings and etchings on display from 70 local amateur artists. But the show closes on August 25

The Ypres Castle Inn, affectionately known as the Wipers, hosts a fantastic collection of bands during this year's International Jazz and Blues Festival. With more than a dozen different acts strutting their stuff on the outdoor stage the bank holiday weekend is bound to be a blast. And it's all free!