You might think a lighting designer wouldn’t be considering environmental issues as they worked. If so, you’d be wrong. “It’s something I've been concerned about professionally for a long time”, Graham Festenstein tells me. In fact, stories about our environment – from the beauty of moonlight to the impact of rising sea levels – are the theme this year for LewesLight, the annual festival of light he’s curating. “We’re probably using less energy on one installation than someone would be using in their house for an evening”, he reassures me, before pointing out that effective lighting doesn't always need to be bright. "We want to demonstrate that darkness is nothing to be frightened of; it’s something to be embraced and enjoyed. Our eyes adapt to darkness really well."
 
Key locations across town will be transformed by lighting and projections for three nights. As with previous LewesLight festivals, the choice of sites is very important – and, at the time of our conversation, still very secret. "We want to find special places", Graham explains. Each illuminated installation will be staffed with well-informed volunteers. "We'd like visitors to understand a little bit more about why it's been created. Lots of arts events don't provide that."
 
LewesLight is undeniably a collaboration, generously supported by the lighting industry alongside production partners Sussex Events Limited. Lighting designers and organisers give their time for nothing, whilst an Arts Council grant means local artists can be paid for their contributions. The whole thing is run as a not-for-profit Community Interest Company, with a new emphasis this year on mentoring college and university students through the whole process. Safety concerns mean younger children can't participate directly; instead LewesLight is working with schools to create projects that will form part of the festival. A desire to work with young people is one of the reasons the festival has moved from October to February, fitting much better with term times. And, as Graham adds, "It's darker earlier, so we can kick off at six o'clock rather than seven o'clock, which is great for families and children." Also involved are the Linklater RATS (Raising Awareness of Tides and Sea levels), a youth group linked to the Lewes Railway Land Project. "It's 20 years since the Lewes flooding in 2000", Graham reminds me. "We wanted to work with them as this coincided with our ideas of exploring climate emergency and environmental issues."
 
Ultimately, Graham insists, LewesLight is about more than just light and darkness. "It operates on two levels, in a way. You can come and see it, you can enjoy it for what it is. But there's also the wider back story. I think the process of putting the thing together, engaging with people and bringing people together, is as important as the final result. We're not a gallery – this is a town."
 
LewesLight runs at sites across town from 28th February until 1st March 2020.
Free admission; full details at leweslight.uk

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 161 February 2020

Peter Bayless, BBC MasterChef 2006
 
It was my wife who suggested that I entered MasterChef. After 39 years of working in advertising, I was getting tired of it – and I rather fancy that advertising was getting tired of me. “You should cook”, she said. “Everyone loves your food. You need to get on one of those TV programmes.”
 
I was born in north London immediately after the Second World War. Half of the street was a bomb site, so I wasn’t allowed out to play. Instead I'd be in the kitchen with my mother, standing on a chair to stir puddings, roll pastry and even cut vegetables. This love of cooking was reinforced at the age of 12 when we went on a family holiday to the south of France. I'd never seen such exotic food. I applied to study catering at school but the headmaster convinced me to focus on art and design.
 
Winning MasterChef isn’t a passport to instant success. It opened a few doors – I worked for Michel Roux, Raymond Blanc, John Williams at the Ritz – but realised I had to come back to earth. I took a job as a chef, wrote a book and magazine articles, did some radio and TV, then started teaching and doing private parties. And from August I'm going to be helping friends who run a Greek restaurant in Heathfield.
 
I’m very keen for people to learn how easy it is to create simple, nutritious, inexpensive food for themselves. That’s what I’ll be demonstrating at Firle Vintage Fair on 9th, 10th and 11th August, including this recipe.
 
Serves 4 people
 
For the pasta
200g ‘tipo 00’ pasta flour
2 whole eggs, beaten
Large saucepan of boiling water
Generous amount of salt
 
For the sauce
2 large handfuls of baby plum tomatoes, halved
2 large cloves of garlic, crushed with sea salt
2-3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzle
2-3 handfuls of fresh spinach
Salt & freshly ground black pepper, plus extra for finishing
Bowl of grated parmesan (more or less to taste)
Bowl of chopped parsley
Half a glass of dry white wine
 
Method for the pasta
Place the flour into a food processor and, with the motor running, add the beaten egg in a stream until the dough begins to come together. (Italian nonnas – grandmas – do this all by hand.) Remove, knead to a smooth ball and wrap in film. Refrigerate for 15 minutes, then use a pasta machine to roll out the dough and cut it into wide tagliatelle strips. Dust with flour and set aside.
 
For the dish
Heat the oil in a large pan and add the tomatoes, followed by the crushed garlic. Add salt, pepper and the wine. Simmer gently while you cook the pasta in well-salted water for just 2 minutes. Lift the pasta from the water and add it to the sauce, along with a couple of spoons of the cooking water, then toss well together. Gently stir in the spinach. Serve in warmed bowls with a generous amount of grated parmesan, chopped parsley and a final flourish of extra virgin olive oil. Add freshly ground black pepper to taste.
 
As told to Mark Bridge
 
peterbayless.com
firlevintagefair.co.uk

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 155 August 2019
​

In June 2019, ex-EastEnders star Samantha Womack visited Brighton as part of the cast for The Girl on the Train, a play based on the best-selling novel by Paula Hawkins. She’d been playing the role of Rachel Watson in the touring production since it opened in January. This is an extended version of the interview that appeared in Viva Lewes magazine issue 153. 
 

The main thing about Rachel is that she's broken by circumstance. She's very devil-may-care and rebellious but there's something quite vulnerable about her. Some performances I'll start with a slightly more accessible Rachel, or I can be very surly and aggressive – and the play will unfold with that starting point. That keeps my attention completely riveted to the dialogue as if it was fresh for the first time. Anthony Banks, the director, has been very clever: he's cast actors who are actually quite malleable. We all bend and adapt to our spaces. We're not militant in keeping everything too set in stone, which would be very boring for me. I’m not that kind of actor, I like to keep things fresh. Particularly there’s an actor that plays the detective inspector, John Dougall; we've got a few scenes together and our scenes are such fun to do because he's playful and will react. He still listens and I still listen to him, so there’s a kind of dance that happens. I really enjoy that aspect of acting.
 
It’s quite an isolating feeling being on tour; some days you are very engaged and have a lot of energy and then other days you feel kind of slightly separate to your own life because you're living in hotel rooms. Sometimes I’ll wake up with a certain kind of mood and rather than try and eradicate that completely I'll try and tailor it in some way to what I can use for the performance. I'm not really method method but I would definitely tend to use how I feel more than not, just because I think that's helpful to me as a person.
 
The concept is 'thriller' but it's a psychological drama as well. Anthony wanted the set to feel like pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that Rachel is trying to manage in her head, because she has these large holes in her memory. So bits of it glide on and glide off. But the sets themselves are quite barren, so there's almost a book-like quality, pages of a book turning. Our set has not only had to work in beautiful gothic theatres or smaller Edwardian theatres, it's also had to work for contemporary large spaces as well. That's the beauty of touring, really; what keeps it fresh is that each space brings along almost a new version of the play.
 
I love the freedom of a stage. It's working with a story chronologically, as well. There is something really satisfying about starting at the beginning and finishing at the end. With a soap, you'll be filming six to eight episodes in a day, so in the morning you'll be doing stuff where you've lost a baby and in the afternoon you'll be doing stuff where you're still pregnant. It can be that crude. Whereas with a play, the minute you set foot on that stage, it's a rollercoaster ride and you don't get off until the end. You have creative control as an actor, within the parameters of what’s been set by the writer and the director, you then have a certain amount of freedom – and I have to say, as I get older, that freedom has become really important to me.
 
With television, let’s say you do your establishing shot first, which will be all the characters in the scene on a wide angle. Whatever you've committed to do in that first wide shot, you then have to manufacture identically that same performance and tone for another thirty close-ups. I was listening to Laurence Olivier talking the other day about acting, I think it was a Parkinson interview. He said you're an engineer of sorts, your technicality is completely different, you’re manufacturing the same thing over and over again – where you stand, where you move to, the tone in your voice – so it doesn't differ from what you originally committed to.
 
There's a lot of competition, so I try really hard not to get typecast. I understood very early on that I had to diversify if I wanted to survive, but it kept me interested creatively as well. In my 20s, I did things like Game On or Babes in the Wood. I was doing lots of comedy and kind of sexy vampy roles, and I thought ‘Well, I’m going to need to be careful here’. I got written this beautiful part called di Pauli for a series called Liverpool 1, which was quite like The Vice, and all of a sudden there was this quite fiery character who was a female in a male dominated environment but she held her own - and then I thought ‘Well, now I'm just doing TV and all of those theatre roles have stopped coming’, so I went back to musicals, I did Guys and Dolls with Patrick Swayze but then I'd cut to a straight play. I have this need to survive. I'm the breadwinner, I'm a mum and acting is really hard to get employed in now.
 
I can drive through the night on Saturday night after two shows, I'll get home at about two in the morning but that means I wake up at home on Sunday. It’s tough, I won’t pretend that it’s not. I’m exhausted, at weekends I just want to collapse into a little ball. Actually I'm tidying and I'm doing homework and I'm taking the dogs to go the vet; I'm trying to manage everything in that one day that I haven't managed to do in the week. But I'm very lucky; I have a very supportive husband who's also an actor, he understands how hard that is, and the kids are great too - they've grown up in this industry - we all pull together.
 
For me, Brighton is synonymous with my father. He was a very eccentric, sweet musician. Every time I turned up in Brighton, he'd come and meet me on the pier with his cowboy hat and his guitar and his Dalmatian dog. And he's not with us now. So I have these poignant memories. Growing up in Brighton in the '70s, we’d go down to the beach when I was two, three and four. He was discovered by Fleetwood Mac’s manager and so I’d be babysat by all these incredible musicians. I've got very vivid memories of that, like the summer of '76 when it was really hot and being a little thing, barefoot and just kind of traipsing down to the beach with a bunch of hippies. Brighton is a very, very special place to me.
 
As told to Mark Bridge
 
The Girl on the Train was at the Theatre Royal Brighton from Monday 17th until Saturday 22nd June 2019.

It’s not unusual for a child musician to change their mind and turn away from their chosen instrument as they enter their teenage years. What you probably wouldn’t expect is for the child to swap his violin for an accordion.
 
“I just loved the powerful sound of a squeezebox in full flight”, Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne tells me. “I loved the idea of being able to play tunes with rich and complex accompaniments and countermelodies, which is possible on concertinas and melodeons – not so much on the violin.” The timing couldn’t have been better, as he’d just started to develop an appreciation of English folk songs. “It’s the music that I like, the music that I feel the strongest connection to and the music that has had the strongest effect on me. I love the unusual melodies, the captivating narratives to songs and the fascinating history that comes with every piece.”
 
Barely a decade has passed since Cohen fell for the concertina, the melodeon and the traditional music he plays on them. In that time, he’s won Bromyard Folk Festival’s Future of Young Folk Award, he’s studied with ‘one-man folk industry’ Pete Coe and he’s graduated from the University of Leeds with a BA in Music. These days he’s playing on his own and with the band Granny’s Attic, although it’s the solo Cohen who’s coming to Lewes this month, performing in the evening of Saturday 13th after running a melodeon workshop during the day.
 
“It’s fair to say that I have learnt a huge amount from other players, including John Kirkpatrick, Pete Coe, John Spiers, Brian Peters and Adrian Brown”, Cohen explains. He’s also investigated how concertinas and melodeons were played when they originated around 200 years ago. One such technique involves vigorously moving the instrument in a circle whilst playing it: perhaps the Victorian equivalent of plugging an effects pedal into an electric guitar. “There was a time when just about every concertina player was doing it, but now there are only a handful of us doing it. Essentially the movements through the air alter the sound of the concertina; it’s all to do with the Doppler Effect.”

But Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne isn’t just an exceptionally talented player. He sings as well, with a rich, strong voice that’s well-suited to the traditional music he plays. “I always sang and played around the house, but it took me a while to be able to do it in public”, he admits. “I began singing and playing in public when I was about 17, so about four or five years after I started playing concertinas and melodeons.”
 
Yet all this would probably never have started without those free violin lessons at primary school. “That was my way into music. I honestly think that if they had not been on offer, I probably would not have ended up following this path as a musician.”

Cohen performs at the Elephant & Castle on Saturday 13th. Tickets £7 from the pub or via lewessaturdayfolkclub.org

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 151 April 2019

Back in June 2018, music publicist Del Day and musician Danny George took over Union Music Store from founders Stevie and Jamie Freeman. In some ways, little has changed. It’s still very much the antidote to mainstream online retailing: a local record shop where the owners love discovering new music and sharing their knowledge. Despite this, they’re also happy to order anything you want. “We're not snobs but we've only got a certain amount of space to play with”, Danny admits. It’s what Del describes as a curated approach. “We want it to be a shop where you can pick a record up and we go ‘that's a great record’ and genuinely mean it. It's becoming a little arts hub here for us – and we'd like to extend that.”
 
Look closer and you'll spot a broadening of genres, heralded on my visit by the jazz trumpet of Lee Morgan greeting me as I walked through the door. “Since we moved in we've expanded the range of stock”, Del tells me, “so rather than just being a specialist Americana/country shop, we've now got world, jazz, blues, some classic rock and a lot more interesting left-field records.” You'll also discover loads more vinyl albums – “we're probably 80% new and used vinyl” – and, if you turn up on the last Wednesday evening of any given month, there's a good chance you'll find a session of the shop's Album Club taking place.
 
Album Club is “essentially like a book club”, Del explains, attracting an even mix of men and women. You buy a copy of the month’s chosen album – obviously the shop would appreciate your custom but what’s more important to them is that people obtain a physical copy rather than relying on streaming services – and you listen to it as much as you can. “It's about embracing the art form again and actually cherishing buying the record. And this gives you a chance to reinforce that.” Whoever turns up for the meeting will find the kettle on and beer in the fridge. “We meet in here at 7.30pm, we play back the record and we discuss it for about two hours”, says Del. “It's basically a chance to nourish that artistic element in your head.” There’s no fee and no obligation to stay until the end.
 
Union Music Store has hosted five album club meetings so far, from Damien Jurado to Janelle Monáe. January’s meeting will be listening to Merrie Men, the latest album from supergroup The Good, the Bad & the Queen. Yes, it’s a diverse collection – but what’s the point?  Del has a characteristically matter-of-fact answer. “It's a little bit of publicity for our shop, it's a way of embracing the art form, which we think is really important, and it's also a social event. It's immensely enjoyable. I really look forward to it.”

Union Music Store, 1 Lansdown Place, Lewes. unionmusicstore.com

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 148 January 2019

Penned Up is a unique two-week arts and literature festival that rotates around prisons. Not only is it designed for prisoners, it’s also curated by them. “Prisoners are involved in the conception, the planning, the ideas and the promotion”, Co-Director David Kendall tells me. “Some want to be more creative, others want to use what they learn to deal better with their time in prison. For some, it helps them through difficult times, for others it allows hope. The arts can address who we think we are, and who we think we should be.”

This year, Penned Up came to Lewes Prison. It’s a festival that takes place behind closed doors: its audience as well as its performers are prisoners. But outside is an event that’s aimed at a wider audience. The Keep at Falmer is hosting ‘Inside Lewes Prison’ – two talks about life behind bars: a historical insight from County Archivist Christopher Whittick; and a personal perspective from author and journalist Erwin James.

Back in 1984, Erwin was neither of those things. He’d just been convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. It would be 20 years before his release. During that time, education and reading transformed his perspective. He took O-level English, then an Open University degree and a journalism course. But Erwin insists he isn’t an exception, apart from his subsequent career choice. “The vast majority of people in prison hate being criminals” is what he found when talking to other offenders. “Few rejoice in being outcasts. Most are broken, damaged and, like any regular citizen, have dreams of living a regular life, with a job, a home, a family. There is never any excuse for crime, for causing hurt and pain to others, but if we don't use our prisons constructively the hurt and pain will continue.”

Earlier this year the Secretary of State for Justice, David Gauke MP, said prison had three main purposes: protecting the public, punishment and rehabilitation. What does Erwin think? “Pretty much the same – but, since the majority of people in prison will be released one day and will be somebody's neighbour, we have to agree more as a society that rehabilitation is key.”
 
Art can be a key part of this rehabilitation, according to Erwin. “My experience was that creativity – more than anything else – gives people who engage a sense of value and worth like nothing else can. I'm so grateful for the authors, musicians and poets who came to the prisons I was in over the years; they gave me hope that I might find the better part of me and, along with help from the teachers and good-hearted prison staff, I made it.”
 
“I want people, the public, to be safer from people like I was. Helping people in prison is not about compassion for broken damaged lives; it’s about practicalities, to make communities safer.”
 
Inside Lewes Prison takes place 6pm – 8pm on Wednesday 7th November 2018 at The Keep. Tickets £5; booking essential via 01273 482349.

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 146 November 2018

At the age of fifteen, Thomas Dunford was performing on stage at the Comédie Française theatre in Paris. The Spectator described him as 'a teenage rock star of the lute', while BBC Music magazine made favourable comparisons with guitarist Eric Clapton. So what brings this internationally-acclaimed musician to the 60-seat Lapwing Festival at Cuckmere Haven on Sunday 2nd September? “When people are friendly and the place is beautiful, it's as good for me as being in Carnegie Hall”, Thomas tells me.
 
The lute is often seen as a medieval instrument, although its origins can be traced back much further. However, you’re unlikely to hear a truly original lute being played. “It's one of the most fragile instruments that exists because it's extremely thin”, admits Thomas. “Most instruments that are from the time have to be restored; they don't age like violins. After 30 years, the soundboard gets a little tired.”
 
As well as having a long history, the lute is also more broadly defined than most modern instruments, with the number of ‘courses’ (strings) varying depending on the musical style and the manufacturer’s preference. “The ‘lute’ could mean a six-course lute or a seven-course lute, theorbo or chitarrone [types of long-necked bass lute]… maybe a hundred different ways of playing and making the instrument”, explains Thomas.
 
Innovative interpretation is something Thomas Dunford has embraced. He’s recently formed ‘Jupiter’, a group of musicians who “play baroque music with my own convictions, which are that this music should be not conducted but everybody has to be the composer together.” This is how he believes the music was originally performed. “I think the way baroque musicians would work was closer to what we do now with jazz music, where they improvise a lot. Bach himself was known more as an improviser than as a composer in his time. In order for us to play music by extraordinary improvisers, we have to know what it is like to create music out of nothing because that is what they were doing all the time in the baroque world.”
 
“The lute is one of the most subtle instruments that I know. There are so many possibilities of tone colours – and it's an instrument that asks for silence. You play one note; there's a lot of resonance… and the resonance is always dying out. So it's an instrument that always invites the silence into variety.”
 
Earlier this year Thomas released a CD of music by JS Bach, including some pieces that were originally written for other instruments. “When he writes, you feel that he's not thinking of any technical means, he's thinking in pure musical form”, he says. “That's why Bach works on any instrument. It's the hardest and also some of the most beautiful music.”
 
The Lapwing Festival runs from August 31st until September 2nd at Cuckmere Haven.  lapwingfestival.com

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 144 September 2018

East Sussex Community Choir is joined by the Corelli Ensemble this month for a performance of three much-loved Mendelssohn works. The programme ends with the symphony-cantata Lobgesang (‘Hymn of Praise’), featuring soloists Dame Felicity Lott, Shona Knight and Paul Austin Kelly. “This is very uplifting music that we're singing”, Dame Felicity tells us. “I love Mendelssohn; he's joyous and raises the spirits.” A Sussex resident since 1980, Dame Felicity fell for the area after performing at Glyndebourne: “I used to love the drive out of London and the sight of the wonderful, rolling, soft Downs.” But what prompted her to fit this particular event into her international schedule? “I thought it would be nice to do something locally, for once. I did a charity concert some time ago with Paul, the tenor, and really enjoyed singing with him.” Not only does Dame Felicity know Paul and musical director Nick Houghton, she’s also very familiar with the music. “I come from Cheltenham, where there's a competitive music festival. When I was a teenager I entered the festival and sang the duet from this with another young singer. It's called 'I waited for the Lord' and I've been singing that all my life.”
 
Saturday 5th May 7.30pm at Lewes Town Hall; tickets £12 from Lewes Tourist Information.

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 140 May 2018

Walking into the staff café at Glyndebourne, I find myself surrounded by dozens of excited children who are taking a break from rehearsing a new opera. ‘Belongings’, composed by Lewis Murphy with words by Laura Attridge, compares the lives of World War 2 evacuees with present-day refugees fleeing war zones. As the youngsters return to the stage, Lewis sits down with a coffee. I ask him if there’s a moral to the story. “If there is a moral, it's about learning from history”, he tells me. “It's about openness and human connection. As well as entertaining the audience, I'm hoping we can make them ask questions of themselves.”
 
Glasgow-born Lewis has been Glyndebourne’s Young Composer in Residence since 2015, before which, he admits, “opera was quite new to me”. He’s clearly a fast learner. As well as composing ‘Belongings’, he’s subsequently been commissioned with librettist Laura to write for Scottish Opera. Should we expect more music from the Attridge and Murphy partnership? “Whether we actually brand it as that, who knows. But in terms of setting ourselves up and promoting ourselves as creators of new opera, it’s something we are interested in. We’ve reached a point now where we feel comfortable working together.”
 
This type of collaborative approach runs throughout Belongings. “Lucy Bradley, our director, was involved from the very beginning of the project, talking with me and the librettist about the story and trying to structure the narrative of the whole piece. And Lee Reynolds, our conductor, has also been heavily involved.”
 
Earlier this year, culture and arts project The Complete Freedom of Truth arranged for all four members of the creative team to visit the Italian town of Sarteano and meet young people in a refugee community. Lucy encouraged the community to perform an improvised drama that represented ‘home’. “It was really heart-warming, touching and very humbling for us to see what these guys missed”, Lewis says. “It was the first time we’d actually had direct contact with people who’d been through that situation.”
 
Insight from the trip has been passed on to the 65 members of Glyndebourne Youth Opera, aged between 9 and 19, who are singing alongside three professional singers: Rodney Earl Clarke, Leslie Davis and Nardus Williams. “The production taking shape here looks incredible, so I’m really excited to see what happens.” There’s a special show for schools followed by one public performance – but what next? “I would love to get it performed again”, Lewis says. “I think it is still a very relevant piece for our times. Themes of displacement and people being thrown into a new environment; these have happened throughout history and will probably continue to happen. As soon as you create conflict, people have to move.” 
 
Belongings will be performed at Glyndebourne on Saturday 11 November. Tickets available from 01273 815000 / glyndebourne.com

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 134 November 2017

Bright new music for the Fading Sun festival
 
Some bands are happy to follow musical trends. Others are determined to set themselves apart from the crowd. 40 Shillings On The Drum is very much in the latter category, as keyboard player Seb Cole explains. “We want to take a new stance on rock music or folk music and give it a new direction.”
 
The band is heading into Lewes – familiar territory for former Sussex Downs College student Seb – as part of the Fading Sun festival at The Dorset Inn on 8th, 9th and 10th September. It’s the fourth year for the free festival, which aims to raise money for the St Peter & St James Hospice, the Starfish Youth Music project and Cliffe Bonfire Society.
 
Although the band’s music is available online, with its latest video receiving more than 25,000 views on Facebook, it’s recently produced a physical EP as well. “I think people prefer something a bit more tangible, something you can hold, look at and put in your car”, Seb says. “There's something nicer about having CDs and vinyl, even though it's less convenient.”
 
I ask Seb about the way the band recorded its songs. “Nothing's put in or created afterwards”, he reveals. “It's all been people in the studio, recording take after take to get the right one. I'm very much one for ‘if you're not able to play it live to an audience then you shouldn't be adding it in to your music’.”
 
As well as playing keyboards and singing backing vocals, Seb also co-writes songs for the band with vocalist Daniel Scully. “Sometimes Dan will have written a set of lyrics but he’ll also have in mind the way that the song would go and the melody of his vocal”. This, Seb tells me, is unusual for a lyricist who doesn’t play an instrument. “It means that you can write song after song very quickly. And every now and then, I'll send Dan a piece of music that I've written specifically for the group and he will put words to it in a more conventional manner.”
 
“We write about where we live, people we know, the experiences that we've had as a group, both good and bad. A lot of the time it's inspiration from the normal day-to-day of what young musicians and bands are going through. Always fighting an uphill battle.”
 
There’s even a hint of battle in the band’s name. Dan borrowed it from a version of the folk song ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’, which was rewritten by John Tams for the TV drama series Sharpe. “Before my time”, admits Seb. “Dan suggested it - and we were all perfectly happy with that as soon as it was mentioned. It really stands out as being something different.” As does the band.
 
40 Shillings On The Drum is at The Dorset Inn in the evening of Saturday 9th. 40shillingsonthedrum.uk
 
First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 132 September 2017